The Death of Margaret "Marmee" March

To My Darling Girls - 

What a fascinating thing it is, to be posthumous!

I sit now at this writing desk, not entirely sure how the delicate plume in my hand came to be there. It is strange girls, how anything to do with “befores” and “afters” slips from the mind.

Do not worry about my lodgings! I have a bed to rest in, and a cup which is nightly filled. The space is small but it is more than made up for by a magnificent picture window. I am drenched in sun at all hours. It is marvelous. 

What, what, what to say you?

I am unusually blessed in one particular way. I have such comfort knowing with certainty that when you pass, there is indeed something here for you. It was so frightening to me, my poor darlings! More so than my own oblivion, I couldn’t bear the thought that death might mean my wonderful children would be ended, forever. 

But! Seeing as I am dead, and wherever I am is somewhere, one of a mother’s many worries can be assuaged. 

What to say to you?

I am so sorry I am gone, my dears. Perhaps I could have given you warning - I do recall feeling death plucking at the corners of my eyes, feeling it underneath the skin around my fingernails. 

Let me amend that. I am only sorry for my manner of leaving.

I am sorry to not wake you from your beds tomorrow.  I am sorry to have disappeared from the house in the night.  I am sorry that the men will find me in three days time, sitting by the river, shoeless, attempting to dip my feet into the frozen crests. I am sorry they will be unable to turn my head away from looking straight up into the sun. 

If it is of any consolation to you, I believe I passed while still at home. That is the last thought I recall, at least - looking into the fireplace and thinking, “Ah! I am dead.”

It was a force beyond my understanding that that ambulated me to the river - to keep you from discovering your Marmee yourselves, I should think. A small comfort, to be sure, but remember the small comforts, girls! For they become more ample, but increasingly hard to see as the years go on.

What!  What to say to you!

“Not all mothers have daughters, but all daughters have mothers.” That is what Caroline Ingalls, my neighbor, keeps saying to me. 

“Well observed, Caroline,” I say back, as I shove her face back through the crack in the door.

I do not care for Caroline. She is a sourpuss and quite racist. She breathes through her nose with a squeak and is always in high dudgeon. Perhaps the idea that whoever has placed me here cares much less about what I do or say than I anticipated has made me too free with my opinions! Or, perhaps I am confident if there is a Lord, I am sure he dislikes her as much as I do.

My other neighbor is the Nightbitch from Nightbitch.

My darlings, my darlings! I know life shall be hard without me. But it is hard in any case, yes? You, like all children, did not ask to be created. You did not ask for Father to be your father, or me to be your Marmee, or to be cast upon the random chance of time, place, etcetera. If your life is hard, it would not have been so if you had not been born.

But, if your life was ever joyful, was that not also because we chose to bring you into it? 

I remember when I was a girl I was so, so frightened of losing my mother. I remember clinging to the hem of her dress, too young to understand it was not just another appendage of hers. When you are that young, you are only truly frightened of losing the space your mother occupies in your life.

It is not until long after, when you are too big to be held anymore, that you realize just how far away from herself she was holding you. 

What use would it have been for you to know how much I loved willow trees, how my right toe-knuckles bent wrong, how when my baby brother was small he had a wart that my father tied a string around so tight that it turned red, then purple, then black, and fell off? 

Oh! Your dear sister is here, girls, though I assume you know! She is not dead, she assures me. She also assures me that my dying is not her fault, which I don’t understand, but take comfort in anyway.

Please be kind to her when she gets home, girls, as she seems ill. She looks like a child who made a snowball and accidentally dropped it down the hill. She often seems to be praying, though I tell her it is unnecessary. Indeed, I feel our household could have done with a measure less devotion, and a measure more fibrous greens at supper. 

My dears. I am confident you have the tools you need. In fact, I predict many events in your life will spool out exactly the way they were meant to! If I were to give any advice at all, it would be to know each other. Your sisters, your spouses, your friends, your teachers. Do not let yourself become metaphor, or history, or cautionary tale. 

I do not regret being your Marmee, never. I do regret the fact that is all I will ever be to a good many people. 

I will hand this letter to Beth, who has been absolutely splendid about organizing all of my and my neighbors’ mail (privately, I think she likes to skim Mrs. Bitch’s catalogues for new fashions). Next for myself? Perhaps a doze in the delicious ray of sunlight I see perfectly alighting on the foot of my bed. I am looking forward to it. 

Good-bye, my wonderful, beautiful girls. I love you. I will miss you.

-Marmee

PS. Caroline, if you are reading my outgoing mail again I will strangle you with my bare hands.

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