email from Angela and reply.

Angela Wijetunga	20:54 (8 hours ago)
to me

Thanks Philip and Nana,

It is sad but true that we all have to go one day when our time on earth is ended. I have lost a wonderful husband, I am now trying to pick up the pieces and go on with life, our daughters and grand children do make life worth living. The number of messages from our batch mates makes one feel the closeness of our friends even though we have not met for years but the bonding during those hard years in Med School still holds on. A big Thank You to all those who sent me messages , sorry I have not been able to send them individual messages, but they have been greatly appreciated.

Angela Wijetunga

1960 medical batch Colombo <1960batch@gmail.com>	06:13 (18 minutes ago)
to Angela

Hello Angela, Thanks for the email. I will post it on our Batch Blog.

Here is some music I am sending you to get over your bereavement. Hope it helps.

Please click on the web-link below with your speakers on. The story of the lyrics is appended below.

http://youtu.be/cRWu3C2Im04

Story of the hymn

Words: San­ford F. Ben­nett, 1868. Music: Jo­seph P. Web­ster (MI­DI, score).

Mr. Webster, like ma­ny mu­si­cians, was of an ex­ceed­ing­ly ner­vous and sen­si­tive na­ture, and sub­ject to per­i­ods of de­press­ion, in which he looked up­on the dark side of all things in life. I had learned his pe­cul­i­ar­i­ties so well that on meet­ing him I could tell at a glance if he was mel­an­cho­ly, and had found that I could rouse him up by giv­ing him a new song to work on.

He came in­to my place of bus­i­ness [in Elk­horn, Wis­con­sin], walked down to the stove, and turned his back on me without speak­ing. I was at my desk. Turn­ing to him, I said, “Webs­ter, what is the mat­ter now?” “It’s no mat­ter,” he re­plied, “it will be all right by and by.” The idea of the hymn came me like a flash of sun­light, and I re­plied, “The Sweet By and By! Why would not that make a good hymn?” “May­be it would,” he said in­dif­fer­ent­ly. Turn­ing to my desk I penned the words of the hymn as fast as I could write. I hand­ed the words to Web­ster. As he read his eyes kin­dled, and stepp­ing to the desk he be­gan writ­ing the notes. Tak­ing his vi­o­lin, he played the mel­o­dy and then jot­ted down the notes of the cho­rus. It was not over thir­ty min­utes from the time I took my pen to write the words be­fore two friends with Web­ster and myself were sing­ing the hymn.

Sanford Fill­more Ben­nett (1836-1898)

This song was sung in the Acad­emy Award win­ning mo­vie Ser­geant York (1941).

The 1907 Spanish Latter-day Saint hymnal contained a similar song, set to the same tune and titled "Hay un mundo feliz más allá", that was copied with permission from the American Tract Society's Himnos evangélicos.^{[3][4]  [7 …} It was titled "Despedida" until the 1992 hymnal, which changed the title to match the first line of the song, "Placentero nos es trabajar".^[6][8]

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There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling place there.

Refrain

In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore;
In the sweet by and by,
We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore
The melodious songs of the blessed;
And our spirits shall sorrow no more,
Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

Refrain

To our bountiful Father above,
We will offer our tribute of praise
For the glorious gift of His love
And the blessings that hallow our days.

Refrain

Philip G V