Editor’s note: Sometimes I wonder why I keep running a memorial piece for Eric every year. He’s been gone 7 years. I guess it’s because this was his blog. When he died his last request was that it continue, so I carried it on, and it seems right to acknowledge him periodically since without him this blog would not exist nor would the Tsunami Rangers, and without their influence many things in the kayaking world would have played out differently over time. And also because I love him. We all lose people. People die. They go away. Shit happens, and we grieve. I hope that when I post these memorials it might bring a little healing to others who have lost someone they love. This piece was written by Henry Scott Holland (January 27, 1847 – March 17, 1918). Holland was Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford.
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 old 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 into 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 that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.
Please feel free to comment and share memories of Eric or someone you loved and lost below! Thanks!
