Mary Donovan, May 28th 1991- November 30th, 2006

I have been reluctant to start this year, not wanting to think of the awfulness, not wanting to dredge up the pain and not wanting to experience it all over again. And then I realized it is with me everyday, it hasn’t gone anywhere, it is there, deep within and I hide it, hide from it. Only wanting you back, and wanting to see you grow and mature. Missing that. Missing the sound of your voice and the smell of your hair, when I kiss the top of your head. Missing your hugs and your laughter. Wondering what you would look like after all this time. How your voice would sound and what words you would choose to use. Would your laugh still be the same as we remember it? Missing that… missing…. 4 years of missing and while we breathe in and out and life goes on, the awfulness is still there. I guess it always will be. We do not show it the same way, but it has not changed, it has not left us. But in our hearts, neither have you Marmy Cake. Forever and always Mom, Zech, Emma and Hanna

Death is Nothing at all!

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

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we always 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 effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is 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.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!



Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral