One Year Later

It is a year today that Mom left this world in the dark hour before dawn. It is true that life goes on but each event is coloured by her absence. She lives on in each of her children, their children and in our hearts and memories. On Easter weekend we watched a DVD of Dad’s home movies from 1954-1960. Mom and Dad were so young when they boarded a plane to London England and then took a ship through the Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal and down the east coast of Africa to South Africa. Travel was a big part of their lives.

Blogger Larry also said goodbye to his mother last year. He posted an excerpt of a poem by Henry Van Dyke that is found widely on the internet, but was very meaningful to me. Mom crossed oceans four times by ship in her lifetime and then she headed for another shore in 2013. I miss her every day but know I will see her again. 

Mom starting ocean crossing #3 with my brother Nathan and myself

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!"

And that is dying…

Henry Van Dyke