** sigh **

this has not been an easy week.

monday night my friend...my Martha...died.

she passed away suddenly...very suddenly...and so we are all stunned.

we've been friends-sisters really-for years.

as a Martha, what our small group of friends call themselves,

 her problems were our problems, her joys were ours too.

she was currently serving as the Relief Society president and i was blessed to be her counselor.

now this Martha used that verb-"serving"- to its fullest measure.

i think she used up her life in serving everyone...and i mean EVERYONE...around her!

now, lest you think i'm deep in the pit of sorrow and despair...trust me...i have a firm testimony of God's plan of happiness and i KNOW...without the teeniest bit of doubt...

that i will see her again.

i know that she's simply opened a door and is waiting in another "room."

...but i still miss her!

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 that you always used. Put no difference in 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 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 round the corner.

All is well.

Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)
Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral