Mary Lincoln's presence at Abraham's death-bed

[Laurie Verge]

I believe that Nelson Mandela's family is being accused of not letting him go right now. A daughter gave an explanation as to why they remain at his bedside, but I forget what she said, but it was part of their religious beliefs. I heard this morning that he is now on life support. I cannot imagine that that courageous man would want that.

Two personal experiences: My father died of cancer in a military hospital. We knew for several days that the end was near, so my mother and I maintained a vigil during the hours that we were permitted to be there. I had called my in-laws to come help watch my six-year-old, and my mother and I left the hospital just long enough to meet them and let them in the house. In total, the absence was no more than about fifty minutes.

As we returned to the base and were within a mile of the hospital, I was suddenly overwhelmed with one of the funniest feelings I have ever experienced. To this day, I can only describe it as the thirty-second bout of flu! It took us about fifteen more minutes to reach the hospital, park, and get to Dad's room. The sheet had been pulled over his face, and a corpsman told us that he had died about fifteen minutes before. I have always thought that my "flu" attack marked the moment that my father died.

The second story is related to my mother's death. She was a strong 94-year-old up until the last year of her life when congestive heart failure hit. One week before the end, she had to be sent from the hospital to a nursing home. She had made a medical directive years before for no unusual measures, and I only caved in once when it was obvious that the pressure in her lungs was very uncomfortable - despite her being in a coma. They pumped her lungs, but did not do life support.

The staff was very kind and allowed me to stay with her twenty-four hours a day. I actually slept in the bed next to her's for three nights. They also told me that one's hearing is the last to go, so I talked with her, sang songs and hymns, reminisced about my childhood, etc. On the fourth day, it was obvious that the end was near. I was by myself that morning while my daughter was attending the funeral of her fiance's son (14-year-old murdered by a gang because he wouldn't join the gang!). One of my daughter's friends called me on my cell to see how I was doing, and I told her that Mom was almost gone. She said, "Are the curtains open?" Yes, I had kept them open the whole time. She then said, "Open the window a little bit." It was June 3rd, so I could.

This friend was raised in what we used to call The Holy Rollers - I guess that it is a Pentecostal faith today. They believed that opening the curtains and the window near a dying person would tell them that it was time to go. It worked. Mom passed away exactly at 10 am as my daughter was entering the church behind her future stepson's casket. We said that Mom left us to go take care of him.

In 1865, I doubt that Edwin Stanton knew that the hearing was the last sense to be taken away before death. However, Linda is probably right that he wanted Lincoln to have quiet in his final moments. It just seemed right.

One last comment: The thread about PTSD may very well be accurate. Up until 2009, my daughter had not experienced dealing with the death of loved ones. She had been too young to understand when her grandpa died. In 2009, she lost a future stepson on May 31, her beloved grandmother on June 3, her other grandmother in October, and the break-up with her fiance at Christmas. He could not deal with his son's loss, nor accept the fact that, despite being a deputy sheriff, he could not save his own son.

PTSD hit my daughter and lasted for nearly two years. She still has memories of that sad period and finds that visiting her grandmother's grave and talking with her helps. That said, does anyone know if Mrs. Lincoln visited her husband's grave at all before her death nearly twenty years later?