Grief is undoubtedly traumatic for those who are left-behind; however, the words presented in this poem show that life has the potential of withstanding the detriment of death. Perhaps one of the best-recognized works of the late, Henry Scott Holland, “Death is Nothing at All” is a hopeful conceptualization of belief beyond bereavement. His well-placed vocabulary does a decadent due-diligence for providing those individuals with hope during their time of loss. His words manage to express the notion that what is gone is not lost:

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!

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Feature: Jerry at Flickr, Creative Commons, some rights reserved