My friends are now at that age where their parents are passing over to the next world,\u00a0 and two people I love and respect have lost parents recently.\u00a0 While neither death was a surprise (both parents were of advanced age), it’s nonetheless a shock when it does actually happen, no matter how long the person has been ill and no matter how prepared you think you are to deal with it.<\/p>\n
My parents saved me the angst of coping with their deaths in my mid-life by dying while I was in college, so I’m able to offer empathy to my friends who are now going through the experience.<\/p>\n
My family has some traditions for our funerals, and one of them is the reading of the following poem at every funeral.\u00a0 I must offer thanks to the now-deceased Reverend Gerald Sappington, pastor of the First United Methodist Church in Webb City, Missouri, for giving us this poem many, many years ago.<\/p>\n
I hope it brings comfort to those who need it.<\/p>\n
Death is a Door
\nNancy Byrd Turner<\/p>\n
Death is only an old door
\nSet in a garden wall;
\nOn gentle hinges it gives, at dusk
\nWhen the thrushes call.<\/p>\n
Along the lintel are green leaves,
\nBeyond the light lies still;
\nVery willing and weary feet
\nGo over that sill.<\/p>\n
There is nothing to trouble any heart;
\nNothing to hurt at all.
\nDeath is only a quiet door
\nIn an old wall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My friends are now at that age where their parents are passing over to the next world,\u00a0 and two people I love and respect have lost parents recently.\u00a0 While neither death was a surprise (both parents were of advanced age), it’s nonetheless a shock when it does actually happen, no matter how long the person […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tarotpathways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}