There she comes

Nothing whatsoever to do with sleep, but recently a good friend's father died and I was reminded of this beautiful passage which has helped me in the past deal with the enormous subject of death, and which I would like to share. Here it is:

What is dying?

I am standing on the sea shore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says 'She is gone.'

Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all;

she is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,

and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.

The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;

and just at the moment when someone at my side says 'She is gone',

there are others who are watching her coming,

and other voices take up a glad shout,

'There she comes' - 

and that is dying.