Now, my father was not a religious man, so his service was held at the funeral home prior to his funeral at the Veteran's cemetery. The clergyman who took care of the funeral was a nice man. I spoke with him on the phone the day before the funeral, and I met him at the wake and told him every little thing I could remember about my father. He had never met me, nor had he ever met my father. I wanted him to get this right. It's not every day you get your last chance to honor someone, you know? So I left it in his hands, and I have to say that he really performed a beautiful service. There wasn't anything in there that I would have changed. During the service he read the following poem.
The Ship
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side 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 and watch her
until at length she is only a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky meet
and mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side exclaims,
"There, she's gone!".
Gone where? Gone from my sight is all.
She is just as large in hull and mast and
spar as when she left my side,
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side
says "She's gone", there are other eyes watching
for her coming and other voices ready to take up
the glad shout, "There she comes!"
And that is dying.
The following February I decided it was time to go through some of my father's boxes to cull and sort. He had a lot of stuff that I just still don't know what to do with. Letters to his mother that he made me promise to never read (now what do I do with those?), newspapers, report cards and so on. In the midst of this, I came across a simple white envelope with nothing but his name written on the front. It looks like his handwriting, but it isn't addressed to anyone but him, just "Roy", so I opened it. In the envelope was a piece of typewriter paper with something typed on it. It was the poem from his funeral. Nothing else written on it. Nothing about where it came from, why he had it, nothing. I had never heard this poem. This poem that was read at my father's funeral was sitting in his personal belongings for the past 35 years, at least. He is always with me.
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side 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 and watch her
until at length she is only a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky meet
and mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side exclaims,
"There, she's gone!".
Gone where? Gone from my sight is all.
She is just as large in hull and mast and
spar as when she left my side,
and just as able to bear her load of living freight
to the place of her destination.
Her diminished size is in me, not her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side
says "She's gone", there are other eyes watching
for her coming and other voices ready to take up
the glad shout, "There she comes!"
And that is dying.
It was a beautiful poem and while my father never had anything to do with sailing, it felt very appropriate at the time. I had never heard it before, it gave me peace that day, but I never really thought about it again after the funeral day was done.
The following February I decided it was time to go through some of my father's boxes to cull and sort. He had a lot of stuff that I just still don't know what to do with. Letters to his mother that he made me promise to never read (now what do I do with those?), newspapers, report cards and so on. In the midst of this, I came across a simple white envelope with nothing but his name written on the front. It looks like his handwriting, but it isn't addressed to anyone but him, just "Roy", so I opened it. In the envelope was a piece of typewriter paper with something typed on it. It was the poem from his funeral. Nothing else written on it. Nothing about where it came from, why he had it, nothing. I had never heard this poem. This poem that was read at my father's funeral was sitting in his personal belongings for the past 35 years, at least. He is always with me.
1 comment:
Pretty amazing. I'll never forget that poem or your story.
Years ago, my mother-in-law sent a poem called "Don't Quit" to my sister-in-law, who was living in Baltimore at the time and going through a rough patch teaching. A few years later, when she was very sick with cancer, she had a dream that her parents, who had died over thirty years before, were reading her that poem. She woke up saying, "Don't quit" and started to use that as her mantra. A few days later a friend sent her a card. The poem, "Don't Quit" was inside. Needless to say, my sister-in-law read it at her memorial service.
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