#sorry but i'm even more emotional about this after watching ofmd someone please appreciate

[the-most-sublime-fool]

Then, too, at sea—to use a homely but expressive phrase—you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take up the wheel, and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to you, and each of your senses feels the loss.

—a sailor's diary entry, on losing a shipmate, ca. 1834 (from Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr.)

#he also started the entry for that day by saying 'this was a black day in our calendar' #sorry but i'm even more emotional about this after watching ofmd someone please appreciate #this is an actual entry in a real sailor's diary about really losing one of his shipmates #two years before the mast #richard henry dana jr. #quotes #nautical #the sea #nautical history #ofmd #our flag means death