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!”
While on vacation last week, I was able to read a few books (can you tell it was a childless vacation – otherwise I never could have gotten any reading done!)
I read the incredible story of Dr. Eben Alexander in his book “Proof of Heaven”. Dr. Alexander is a Neurosurgeon who has a near death experience and shares his experiences with his journey into afterlife.
What is so unique about his recount and his experience is the fact that he is Scientist, a Doctor, who knows the ins and outs of the brain, and truly always believed that anyone who had a “near death experience” did experience “something” – that could be explained by science.
Until it happened to him. And scientifically he could not explain it away. And things happened to him that proved that science could not explain it away.
So while the skeptics can still be skeptics if they choose, this book makes you go “wow”. This book will certainly place some doubt in anyone who firmly believes that heaven does not exist.
As I read the book, I couldn’t help but think of my Dad. I couldn’t help but think of where he is and what he might of experienced. I couldn’t help but think about how I feel his hand in many things, and his presence on many days.
I can’t help but miss him, as I talked about here and here.
But I remind myself he is there.
Just gone from my sight.
Sending hugs and prayers. I lost my grandmother in January… althoughboth of my dad’s parents had passed years ago, I was much closer to my mom’s mom, plus, my mom was more devastated than my dad seemed at the time, so this one was much harder, but I do feel her presence. I know she is with us even though, as you say, she is “gone from my sight.”
Beautiful. I think I’d like to read that book. My father died on July 2nd and man, it will be 29 years this July. Wow. And I miss him, but mostly miss what I didn’t have with him.
Dear Leah, That was beautiful. I am to thinking and missing dad. Hard to believe it has been ten years. I know and believe that he is with us in spirit and thinking about us today.
Love
Sarah
xoxo
Beautiful post and just what I needed today. Today is my mother’s birthday or would have been if she was still living. Thinking of you and sending you hugs.-Ashley
That book sounds really amazing. I really believe that those who we’ve lost are still with us in some way.