Maria and I love to walk old cemeteries together and read the inscriptions, we especially love this old cemetery in central Vermont. If is filled with the sons of the town who went off to die in the Civil War. I was touched by this farewell message from a man who died in 1863 and wanted to share his thoughts about death, and how our ideas about leaving the world have changed so much:

“Would ye have me longer tarry,

In that world of sin and pain,

Could you know my spirits rapture,

Would ye wish me back again?”

I loved the dialogue this man had with the world, his question for those left behind, his acceptance of the difficulties of life, and how happy he was to be leaving the world. In death, he was in  rapture, and he asked all of us not to wish him back. I would like to have met this man.

We hide from death, and deny it, and fight it to our last breath. All he wanted was to be free, it was  rapture for him.