The following is a recent status update from my wife's Facebook page.
"At midnight last night I held my grandma for the last time. It was just the two of us in the room. I sang to her, held her close, and she died in my arms. Tonight, I drink to her, while a hundred butterflies fly around me on this gorgeous evening. Life is beautiful, you guys."
"At midnight last night I held my grandma for the last time. It was just the two of us in the room. I sang to her, held her close, and she died in my arms. Tonight, I drink to her, while a hundred butterflies fly around me on this gorgeous evening. Life is beautiful, you guys."
Susan read her grandmother poems through the night from a book passed on to her mother from her grandmother. This is one in particular that Susan remembers reading. Here it is, in honor of Elnora Harris.
A Psalm Of Life
What the Heart of the Young Man
Said to the Psalmist
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And thing are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle;
Be a hero in the strife!
Thrust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act – act in the living Present!
Heart within and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
And I have to include this followup from Sue's FB page or else I would not be representing her personality fairly!
"now a couple of doves are making out in the front yard, while honeysuckle blossoms fall into my glass. shit, universe - you're laying it on pretty thick right now..."
The best, the best, the best. Thank you, Steven and Susan. I hate to cry while at work, ya' know.
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