“Death is Nothing at all”

I’ve been going through my gmail inbox, trying to get rid of the backlog, and it’s so overwhelming I had to figure out a way to proceed.  One idea I had was to search for certain senders and then delete most (or all) of the emails from them.  I started with easy ones, like my old Hydro bills, but then it occurred to me that I could search for emails from my Mom, so I did.  The first ones that came up were from the last few weeks of her life and were not from her, but they were about her and the struggles she had towards the end.  That brought a few tears to my eyes but didn’t get me any closer to figuring out which to delete.  

Then I remembered that until her last move she had a different email address, so I searched for that and the first thing I came up with was a note she sent me almost exactly one year before her death with the subject heading “Thoughts”.  It contained a poem about death.  Here it is:

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.

By Henry Scott-Holland

This is where she ended the quote, although there is one more stanza.  I wonder whether she left it out deliberately because she didn’t believe in an afterlife and she knows I don’t either. However, it was written by a clergyman, Henry Scott-Holland, and he did believe, so he wrote this:

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!

Since I did that mailbox searching exercise, my dear uncle Don died.  He was my mother’s younger brother and my only uncle.  He suffered from dementia for the last few years of his life and was very confused and unhappy for the last few months.  I know his passing is partly a blessing, but, as in the case of my mother’s death, a mixed one.  Whether you can say, “their suffering is over” and find comfort that way, there is always the dreadful finality of death that you run up against.  I wish I had asked my mother more questions, I wish I knew more about her experiences, and now there is no possibility of knowing.  She, and now her brother, are both gone.  If there were things I should have talked to them about, I missed the boat.

Apparently, the author wrote that poem as part of a sermon, but it grew popular on its own, as well it should. It’s a beautiful way to look at death, and brings some comfort, I think, somehow smoothing out the sharp edges of that finality.

It was spooky realizing I could keep searching my inbox for more letters from my Mom. I haven’t yet, but I know they’re there. All this reminds me about a box in the basement containing my mother’s assignments for the “Write the Story of your Life” class she took in her retirement.  Why haven’t I looked into that box in the seven years since her death? Maybe I’ll find answers there to some of the questions I’d like to ask her.