Carol, I was so touched by your posting

>> They're not gone, they're just where we can't see them yet.

that I had to search out this Henry Van Dyke piece for you:

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I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her
until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and
sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all.

Her diminished size is in me not in her. And just at that moment when
someone at my side say: "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching
her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout:

"Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

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Felice