Dad wasn't a religious man, and didn't believe in an afterlife, but I know he'd have loved this piece of writing. Both he and I are fascinated by fine engineering, be that a cruise liner, a car, or a humble lawnmower. And something I get from him is that anything beautifully mechanical (or stubborn!) is referred to as "she". We've both done it as long as I can remember. And then I came upon this consolatio, and it embodies him and his views so perfectly that I want to share it to make you smile when you think of him. "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 her 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." --Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933)