Somewhere Very Near

  ~ in memory of my mother and dear friend

Dorothy Southam Jackson

July 7, 1926 - December 19, 2001

Death is nothing at all.

I have only slipped away into the next room.

I am I, and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other,

that we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,

speak to me in the easy way which you always used.

Put no difference in your tone,

wear no air of forced solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed 

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word 

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect, 

without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was; 
there is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind 

because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, 

somewhere very near,

just round the corner.

All is well.

- Henry Scott Hollan (1847 - 1918)