Whilst Watching An Episode Of A TV Series...

based on the character Father Brown, another person read the lines of the following poem which I have not heard for many many years. In the days before the internet I can remember a TV programme offered to send it out to viewers if they sent in an self addressed envelope, it is one that I always liked. That will always be so whether we find ourselves in another place or not.

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 and if you want to, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,

Let it be spoken without effect,

Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.

It is the same as it ever was;

There is 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. 

- by Canon Henry Scott-Holland