Doing an Internet search ~ I found this one.
I hope it is the rememberance you are seeking.

"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 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 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 that moment when someone 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!"

by Henry Van Dyke