Death Is Nothing
By: Henry Scott Holland

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 still are.

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 affect, without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
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.


August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009