The green chair is empty

What a lovely graveside service today for Aunt Becky; the rector said it was the best he'd ever been to.  Sister Sophia spoke, because the immediate family couldn't get the words out.  The parable of immortality is below.

Mary Anne and I were privileged to be Becky's next door neighbors for a little more than a year; the Park will never feel quite the same without her.  Glad to think that Uncle Hall is the happiest man in heaven.

Becky's obituary

A parable of immortality by Henry Van Dyke

http://www.spirit-path.net/parableimmortality.htm

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch until at last she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, 'There she goes!'

Gone where? Gone from my sight ... that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'There she goes!' there are other eyes watching her coming and their voices ready to take up the glad shouts 'Here she comes!'"

~ by Henry Van Dyke ~