Let my name be ever the household word
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 which you always used.
Put no difference in your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little
jokes 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 effect;
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 absolutely 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 waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner,
All is well.
~ Henry Scott Hawkins
A Canon of St Paul’s Cathedral, London