Dear Gerry,
You enriched our lives and our website Columns Section by sharing your life experiences, thoughts and pondering. We are grateful for what you have given, and for who you are.
The songs sang together, the BBQ meals, the laughter and heartaches, the support experienced and witnessed at the nursing home while we took care of our loved ones…
Christmas carol without your music and songs will not be the same. Gerry, we miss you and your columns…but we’re glad you’re with the love of your life, your dear wife Shirley.
As we discussed so many times and concluded with mutual consent: life is forever, in forms and ways believed - even if unknown; while moments we captured and treasured are already turned into eternity – now.
A Tribute to life
by Gerald Walton Paul
March 14, 2016
Through flickering, fading and failing times, you kept alight the candle of life.
You are not alone.
Nothing of value is ever lost.
Christian faith and a Buddhist both know:
everything’s connected.
Those who want to be connected are, and will be.
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetic lines ring so true:
“A [life] of beauty is a joy forever.
Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness…”
Peaceful and accepting countenance intimates deep connections
- to the earth, sea, and sky; to stars, galaxies and universe; and beyond.
Not dead but passing.
How appropriate:
- the essence of being not terminating but journeying on.
Like a cherry tree of gladness we honour life’s passing,
albeit with a tiny leaf of sadness.
Physical death is not a final ending.
We have existed in some form before;
- the flame will not be extinguished forever.
The essence of a person retains its identity…
As we celebrate life, let’s ponder William Blake’s poem, “Auguries of Innocence.”
Here, he glimpses the incomprehensible nature of the mystery of being.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand / And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, / And Eternity in an hour.”
Let the celebration of life continue--both here and hereafter!
Dedicated to Gerry and Shirley
Lines and photo by Lillian So Chan
Thank you Gerry.
The lines and photo here are dedicated to you and Shirley…
Forever enriching, looping time-space-energy-coordinates
On the road from this life onward,
he walks gaily,
greeted by a thousand angels and buddhas
amid rainbow showers of a million flowers.
Peace, like the fragrance of spring rain,
the caressing summer breeze,
the oranging falling maple leaves,
and the sparkling cloud-soft first snow…
so completely enticing and enveloping - within and without.
Sweet life, love, and songs embrace me when I wake
at the end of this journey
from my sleep.
I'm here. We are here.
Always.
Notes
For more on Rev Gerald Walton Paul:
http://www.yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oId=1047967
Gerald W Paul (2015) Nature is another name for health. WellnessOptions website column: https://wellnessoptions.ca/thoreaus-healthy-lifestyle.html
Gerald W Paul (2015) Spring flowers pass away and so do we. Wellnessoptions website column: https://wellnessoptions.ca/spring-flowers-pass-away-and-so-do-we.html
Beyond life and death? Review of a book The Scalpel and the soul (2009) by neurosurgeon Allan J Hamilton, MD, FACS:
