"I Am Standing Upon the Seashore"

Years ago, a friend shared this poem with me. I have read it several times since then and I love the picture it paints of the transition between life here on earth and our true Home. 

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone!'

'Gone where?'

Gone from my sight. That is all.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: 'There, she is gone!' there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:

'Here she comes!'

And that is dying.

                                                                    by Henry Scott Holland


There have been so many people we know who have recently been parted with their loved ones. I was just reading a beautiful tribute to a grandmother who went Home and the tears streamed down my face as I thought about the pain that sweet heart is feeling, and remembering my own goodbyes to my grandparents and parents. 


Theologically, I don't know how accurately the poem portrays the reality of things. But I DO know the Joy is real when another saint finishes the race and arrives Home. The actual beauty of that reality is probably so far beyond our understanding that we are not able to comprehend it with our finite perspective.


(There are several "versions" of this poem, some attributed to Van Dyke. I used the one from the book my friend shared with me.)