Fr. Murray Park, Dundalk, Louth

 

John’s Months Mind will be celebrated at Mass on Sunday, September 28th in 

St. Nicholas’ Church at 12 noon. All very welcome. 

Gone only from our sight

I am standing on the seashore.

Suddenly a ship at my side spreads

her white sails to the morning breeze,

and starts out for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength,

and I stand and watch her until at

length she is only a ribbon of white cloud,

just above where sea and

sky mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says:

“There She’s gone”. Gone where!

Gone from my sight – that is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull

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 someone at my side says:

“There! She’s gone!” There are other glad voices

ready to greet her with a glad shout,

“There She comes!”.

And that is dying.

John will always be remembered by his daughters and son Antoinette, Fiona, Ian, Moira, Rosemary and Elizabeth, sons-in-law Danny Bennett, Richard Keil and Paul Dawe, grandchildren Nicola, Sarah, Christopher, Danielle, David, Joanne, Daenna, Maria, Emily, Bernadette, Thomas, Jonathan and Brandon, Nicola’s husband Peter, Sarah’s partner Noel, Emily’s partner Maddy, great-grandchildren Georgia and Wyatt-Marie, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces and a wide circle of family and friends.