Yesterday was Al (short of Alphine) Bennett's funeral. She was 87 and fought a lengthy battle with cancer.

On the back of the funeral brochure was this poem by Henry Van Dyke:

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue 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. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

"Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "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......."

*

Al and her husband Ron are the parents of six children. Two of their children died when they were several years old. As the couple's daughters said yesterday after the funeral, "Enough of our being selfish. Now it is time for mom to spend with David and Cathy!"