Still missing her

I've read and re-read this poem many times. It feels like Christian is speaking to me. The second stanza reminds me of how I would get excited about something and come running out if my room looking for her. Since I didn't know where she was, I'd say "Christian!" like it was some emergency, and she'd respond in kind, "Betsy!" Then I would run down the stairs or down the hall to find her, inevitably with a story less enthusiastic than my voice. But she never seemed to mind.


Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to 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 into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we 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 effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

(Henry Scott Holland)