Deathbed Letter from My Great, Great Grandmother

This is a letter to my Great, Great Grandfather from my Great, Great Grandmother in 1887 (original spelling).

She wrote this letter as she lay at death’s door. She died before it was completed. My favorite line is in bold letters.

What a joy it was to find the thing she desired most for her children was the needful thing Jesus spoke about to Martha. I hope it touches you in as emotionally powerful a way as it has me.

“This you shall find some day. Dear John, when I shall have past away forever,and the cold white stone will be keeping its lonely watch over the lips you have sooften pressed, and the sod will be growing green that shall hid forever from your sight the form of one who has so often nestled close to your bosom.

For many long and sleepless nights when all beside my thoughts was at rest. I have wrestled with the consciousness of approaching death, until at last it has forced itself upon my mind, and although to you and to my dear children it might seem but nervous imagination, yet Dear John it is so.

Many weary hours have I passed in trying to reconcile myself to leaving you whom I love so well, and the darling children. God has given us, that need a mothers care and prayers.

Oh, how hard to struggle on silently and alone with the sure conviction that Iam about to leave all forever and go alone unto the dark valley of death. But, I know in whom I have trusted and leaning upon his arm, I fear no evil.

I could wish to live if only to watch over you when in pain, sickness and death, but it is not to be so and I submit, you shall share my last thought and prayer on earth.

When I am gone, try and find comfort in Jesus. Never close your eyes to sleepwithout each reading a verse in the Bible and as my little ones grow up teach them to love the Bible and the church of God.

But, amidst all let memory carry them back to a home where the law of kindness reigned, where the mothers reproving eyes was moistened with tears, and the father frouned more in sorrow than in anger.

I know the spot where you will lay me, often have we stood there together. I loved to visit the place and I know you will love it not the less when I lay there…”