Gone From My Sight

At the funeral mass of my grandfather this past weekend, the priest told a story about one way to look at death. The story involves a ship, the horizon and which viewpoint you're seeing it from. I found this story particularly fitting as my grandfather was in the Navy, loved to cruise and he lived on the banks of Lake Erie. I remember seeing all kinds of barges out on the lake when I would visit there as a little girl. I was told that, on a really clear day, you could see Canada. The priest spoke of watching a ship with his dad as it disappeared into the horizon. His father said, "Those of us watching the ship here in Erie are sad to see it go, but those in Canada are happy to welcome it." What a neat perspective! We are each on our journey. Those, on this planet, are sad when we leave the physical life, but there is a joyous homecoming awaiting us as in Spirit as we cross the horizon. It's all about a change of perspective. As it turns out, there is a poem written about this. I've found two slightly different versions attributed to two different authors. I decided to go with the one below:

Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone'

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me - not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, 'There, she is gone,'
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, 'Here she comes!'

- Henry Van Dyke
 

   I wish you all the best in "Canada," Grandfather.    - Love, Adrienne :)