Just some thoughts:
In 1862 President Lincoln wrote a letter to the daughter of his long-time friend, William McCullough. Word had reached Lincoln that McCullough’s young daughter was so grieved with the news of her father’s death that she had gone into a state of serious depression. Relatives worried about her condition.
McCullough had been a very good friend of Lincoln’s as he had been sheriff and clerk of the McLean County Circuit Court in Bloomington, Illinois when Lincoln was a circuit lawyer. He served in the Civil War as a Lieutenant Colonel and was killed December 5, 1862, in a battle in Mississippi.
Lincoln wrote the following to his grieving friend’s daughter.
Dear Fanny,
It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart; of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend,
A. Lincoln
When one suffers certain losses, regardless of the circumstance, knowing that someone else cares, means a great deal. Oh yes, it means a great deal.
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December 5, 2012
Keep on,
Larry Adamson