There She Goes! Here She Comes!

This afternoon I went to my great aunt's funeral. At 93, she'd lived an incredible life and was a wonderful human being, so the service and time after were the perfect mix of sadness and celebration.

In these last days before the off it was also magical to spend time with this wider chunk of my family. People I love dearly, but rarely get to see; mum's cousins and their children - my second cousins - who I feel genuinely lucky to call family.

My great aunt was the only girl among 7 children, and possessed the rare and wonderful combination of a natural grace and a wicked sense of houmour - something I see reflected in my cousin C. The easiest and most generous of people to talk to, after an hour in her presence you feel like you're shining.

She read this poem by Van Dyke, often used at funerals I understand, but it also reminded me of my own coming journey across and ocean, and the pull from either side.

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!’