Understanding Death

I am still in pain over the loss of my dog, Noir. I miss her every day, and everyday I shed a few tears, wishing I could just once more hold her, bury my nose in the scruff of her neck, give her a kiss, tell her I love her.

Last night a friend sent me the following. It still hurts, but it helps to remember that although the day came when I said, "There she goes," the day will also arrive when Noir will say, "Here she comes."

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UNDERSTANDING DEATH
By Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning 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 and 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 at my side 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!"

And that is dying.