For Michelle and Donna and Kate

I posted a photo of this poem in the last post. You may either click on the photo to enlarge it and read it (or right click on it and click "save as" to save it to your computer). I wish I could say I knew the author, but I do not. I will look for it later...

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 to.
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 ever be the household word it always was:
let it be spoken without effect,
without the ghost of a shadow on 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 put out of mind,
because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.
All is well.