I wrote last week about my friend Cheryl and her battle with cancer, yesterday I attendee her funeral. I have to count my blessings I’ve only attended 3 funerals and I hope that I won’t attend any more for a very long time to come. Cheryl had a very nice service she was loved by many people because she took care of many people in her spa. She had almost 200 people attend and it was a very special event. We found “The Next Place” in Cheryl’s nightstand and I want to share it with you. Sorry it had no author so if you know who wrote it let us know. Please take good care of you self!
The Next Place
The next place that I go will be as peaceful & familiar as a sleepy summer Sunday,
and a sweet untroubled mind.
And yet..it won’t be anything like any place that I’ve ever been..or seen..
or even dreamed of in the place I leave behind.
I won’t know where I’m going, and I won’t know where I’ve been as I tumble
through the always and look back toward the when.
I’ll glide beyond the rainbows, I’ll drift above the sky,
I’ll fly into the wonder, without ever wondering why.
I won’t remember getting there, somehow I’ll just arrive;
But I’ll know that I belong there and will feel much more alive than I have ever felt before.
I will be absolutely free of the things that I held onto that were holding onto me.
The next place that I go will be so quiet and so still,
The whispered song of sweet belonging will rise up to fill the listening sky with
joyful silence, and with unheartened harmonies of music made by no one playing,
like a hush upon a breeze.
There will be no room for darkness in that place of living light,
Where an ever-dawning morning pushes back the dying night.
The very air will fill with brilliance, as the brightly shining sun.
And the moon and half a million stars are married into one.
The next place that I go, won’t really be a place at all.
There won’t be any seasons-winter, summer, spring or fall;
Nor a Monday, nor a Friday, nor a December nor July.
And the second will be standing still..while hours hurry by.
I will not be a boy or girl, a woman or a man.
I’ll simply be just, simply, me..no worse or better than.
My skin will not be dark or light, I won’t be fat or tall.
The body I once lived in won’t be part of me at all.
I will finally be perfect, I will be without a flaw..
I will never make one more mistake, or break the smallest law.
And the me that was impatient, or was angry or unkind,
will simply be a memory..the me I left behind.
I will travel empty handed, there is not a single thing I have collected in my life
that I would ever want to bring, except..
The love of those who loved me, and the warmth of those who cared, the happiness
and the memories and the magic that we shared.
Though I will know the joy of solitude..I’ll never be alone.
I’ll be embraced by all the family & friends I’ve ever known
Although I might not see their faces, all our hearts will beat as one,
& the circle of our spirits will shine brighter than the sun.
I will cherish all the friendship I was fortunate to find, all the love
& all the laughter in the place I leave behind.
All these good things will go with me, they will make my spirit glow,
And that light will shine forever in the next place that I go.
