~IN MEMORY OF NINI~

In memory of "Nini," wife, mother, sister, grandmother, friend and mother in-law. 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 differences into your tone. Wear no formed air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes 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 any effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it meant. There is an absolute 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.

Passage taken from Rosamunde Pilcher's book "September"