Death is Nothing at all !!

Unitech's Bursar (Financial Controller) passed away over the weekend and this came as a shock to the University community. He was a reasonably young man, of good health, with a wife and children and was also an active member within his church and local community.

My heart goes out to his immediate family and close friends and although I subscribe to the buddhist view on life and death I can't help but feel compassion for those left behind with the grief and sorrow.

I have experienced loss and grief on a number of occasions and feel quiet initmate with the pain that follows the loss of a loved one.

There is a poem I come across a number of years ago which for me says much….

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 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 thelittle jokes we enjoyed together.
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.