When I first saw the old painter’s stool, I saw him. And more than that I felt him, there with me in that St. Louis antique store. I felt his energy, his love, and the life that still remained, somewhere very near.
I knew we had a long road trip home, in a car that barely held our luggage, but I also knew that I couldn’t walk away from the emblematic embrace of that old painter’s stool.
I now catch my family–when they visit my home–staring at my vintage stool in a way that tells me that they see him too. “This stool,” They’ll ask, a universal longing reflecting in their eyes, “Didn’t Dad have one just like it?”
For us this stool, painted and worn, is evidence of his existence and of the bond that death has failed to sever. And though it may not be his actual stool–
when I see it, I see him–
and this always makes me smile.
“Death is nothing at all. It doesn’t 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 difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and 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. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!” ~Henry Scott Holland