Ode to Marie

                                                      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 weight to her port.  Her diminished size is in me - not her. And, just at the moment when someone says, "There she is gone," there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout. "Her she comes."  And that is dying.

Death comes in its own time, in its own way. Death is as unique as the individual experiencing it."  Anonymous