Francis M. Gibbons reciting "Thanatopsis" at Age 95

Francis M. Gibbons in a contemplative mood
at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, April 11, 2015

On April 11, 2015 I took my Dad, Francis M. Gibbons, to Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, where he was able to inspect for the first time the gravesite where Mom had been buried the previous August. It was a truly memorable day--a blessed moment. Dad had turned 95 years of age the previous day, April 10th. Within three months, he himself would "shoot on over," as we euphemistically refer to it in our family. While sitting in the sunlight by the graveside, Dad recited for me, from memory, every word of William Cullen Bryant's poem, "Thanatopsis." The final stanza he spoke with unusual vigor, his voice shaking with emotion: 

. . . So live, that when thy summons comes to join 

The innumerable caravan, which moves 

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 

His chamber in the silent halls of death, 

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 

Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 

By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 

About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

Francis M. Gibbons gazing at his gravestone in Mt. Olivet Cemetery,
April 11, 2015, three months before his death.