Reflection #12

“Miss Me But Let Me Go”

Death. It’s something we don’t ever like to talk about, but it is a reality at the nursing home. Our friends there have lived many years — 80, 90, even 100. We may be talking, laughing, and singing with them one day, and they can be gone the next.

It’s only proper that for our last weekly reading we reflect on death a little. As we spend more and more time at the nursing home, sooner or later we will experience the death of a friend there. It’s natural to be sad, but we should only be sad for ourselves, and the loss of that friendship. We don’t mourn for them, because they have been set free from a body that was failing them, with hopes of being reunited with family and friends in another life.

Miss Me But Let Me Go

When I come to the end of the road
And the sun has set for me,
I want no rites in a gloom-filled room!
Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little, but not too long
And not with your head bowed low;
Remember the love
That we once shared
Miss me, but let me go.

For this is a journey we all must take,
And each must go alone;
It’s all a part of the Master’s plan –
A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely
And sick at heart
Go to the friends we know
And bury your sorrows
In doing good deeds.
Miss me, but let me go.

– Author unknown