So, I'm decorating for Christmas, and I find this tucked away in one of the Christmas books that typically adorn our coffee table:
DEATH
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which 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 that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it always was. Let it be spoken without effor, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. This is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be put out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somwhere very near, just around the corner.