Another view of death

March 28, 2013

Due to the nature of my position as a family  doc, caring for multigenerational families over the last 30 years, I have become  comfortable with the lifecycle; birth to death.  While births bring great joy,death brings a multitude of emotion.  While celebrating a child's birth with their new family is one of the greatest pleasures a family physician can experience,  consoling a grieving family is one of the most difficult tasks for most docs.

Today, I mourned the loss of a dear patient with his wife.  She had recently found the following passage tucked away in a in a desk draw.

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next
room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way 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 we always 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 effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in
it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken
continuity

What is death but a negligible
accident?

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an
interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Nothing is past; 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!

Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St
Paul's Cathedral

Dr. Segal blogs at www.livewellthy.org and is the co-author of "Diets and Other Unnatural Acts."