Hattie Gleason
Bodney Cottage
Fassfern
Fort William
PH33 7NP
Scotland
UNITED KINGDOM
November 10, 2021
Dearest Hattie,
It is with a heavy spirit I write in order to tell you that your sister, Sybil, passed away on Tuesday morning, what would have been her son Gilbert's fifty-seventh birthday.
The doctors say she almost certainly died instantly when she suffered a pulmonary embolism.
I am sorry to be the one to send this news, but the children asked me if I would.
You might wonder the details, as I would.
She was fixing a cup of tea in the kitchen and I had walked down to the other house to tend the roses.
When I returned after about thirty minutes, she was at her writing desk, the tea cold, her head lying on the desk as if she'd been ready to begin writing the way she used to.
Fiona and Bruce will go through Sybil's things in due course, and we will send along certain items you might like to have.
The funeral services will take place two weeks from today at the church where Sybil was a member, Church of the Good Shepherd, Annapolis, in the event you would like to attempt attendance.
I am terribly sorry, Hattie, to deliver this devastating news as well as for my failure to be there at the final moment.
I am grateful we were able to spend so much time with you in Scotland, and I am heartbroken that I didn't get more time with our Sybil (I am certain you will feel the same).
It pains me to think of her alone, possibly afraid, and yet perhaps it is as she would have wanted.
Her life, she said to me only very recently, had become so full these last few years, and yet I know that from certain things, now she is free.
I hope to see you again. Your friend,
Theodore
p.s. I am enclosing a photograph of you all at the pub. Fiona took it the last time she was there.