The Ship

My dad passed this morning.  The nurse said he passed peacefully.  I called on the mobile phone last night and the nurse held it to Dad’s ear so I could tell him I love him.  She said she knew he heard me because he moved.  Hopefully closer to the phone.

I’m OK.  Sad he’s gone but I know he was tired and he’d lived a long life.  He was 93.  We spent a few days with him last week.  I’m so thankful that I got to spend some time with him before he passed. Glad that he knew we were there for him as he'd been for us. Glad for that last squeeze of the hand and kiss.

There won’t be a service until the interment in the spring.  They can’t do burials in the winter there. So we’ll do it when the leaves are on the trees and we feel more like celebrating his life.

I felt the need to make him one last card.  He loved clipper ships and put together many models of them.  They were beautiful and intricate and showed he had patience.  I think it was his way of keeping his sanity with teenagers in the house!

On the inside, I put this poem that I had copied and had stashed in my things to remember. I had it copied as The Ship.  In looking for the author on the Internet, I see that it isn't word for word but based on a poem by Henry Van Dyke.  Another Dutchman.

The Ship

I am standing on the seashore.

A ship appears and spreads her white sails

to the morning breeze

and starts for the  blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength

and I stand watching her

till at last she fades away on the horizon,

and someone at my side quietly says,

“She is gone”. Gone where?

Gone from my sight, that is all;

she is just as large as when I saw her last.

The diminished size

and the 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 joyful shout,

“Here she comes!”

Henry Van Dyke                                                                                              

Thanks for letting me share this with you.