Dearly departed

I’m not an expert but I believe we are given the experience of life through body, mind and spirit. We are here in form, on what we know as the physical representation of being alive, living and having the opportunity to inhabit the experience of life.

What if when we have fulfilled our life’s purpose, we then depart?

When our time is up, when it appears we leave this earth, when it looks like we have departed, we have just shed the skin, the body, the form, the human being we arrived as.

Contemplate this poem as a way to understand that what we know to be the experience of life, could be much more complex than what at first appears to us or what we have been taught to believe. What we know versus what we don’t know - there is so much we don’t know.

Death Is Nothing At AllBy Harry Scott-Holland
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!


I’m writing this today to honour the memory of my husband’s father who passed away when my husband was just five months of age. 42 years ago, today he passed on. My husband’s mother is really a hero even thought she will fight me on this. She just did what she had to do but you have to know this. She did do what she had to do.

I only can say this now that I have children of my own and have had enough time to learn about how love is a creation. Love is a creation between two of you. The ultimate declaration are the vows you make and when you think that’s the ultimate declaration, you soon realise that actually the ultimate declaration was in the creation of another human being.

We are all on our own spiritual journeys and I can only speak for myself. Not taking anything away from being a father but I only know what it’s like to be a mother. I’m going to guess it’s the same for a father. When a child is born they are created as a representation of your love. Imagine raising your representation of love on your own, without your loving partner, when all you ever imagined was all of you being together?

Although I have posted this poem, I can imagine only how difficult it must have been to have a spiritual moment and understanding of life and death. My mother in law has looked at every single modality she could have and I’m sure she still asks why. I don’t know why. I just know he fulfilled his life’s purpose to create his son, her son, now, my husband.

He also fulfilled his life’s purpose to love my mother in law and I’m sure he would look on observing all the good, bad and ugly being glad that his son turned out. That his wife has three grandchildren now, to keep her young and on her toes.

And that she has a daughter in law to pass on all the wisdom she has gleaned over the years about life, about death, about spirituality, about what it all means.

I am grateful for my mother in law who will maybe not realise just how much she is the epitome of her son nor the significant influence and impact she has upon us all. They have a very unique relationship that if you looked upon it you might think they don’t get along. But I have learnt over time that they have their own relationship that cannot be compared to anyone else’s parent child relationship.

I have learnt to stay right out of it. But I can see the gestures of love that come from both directions. If I can see it, so can he - in loving memory of Norman Herc Carss, husband time Dale, father to Timothy and grandfather to Noah, Moses and Halle.


“Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?”