Letters of Sympathy

Bessie Rae’s sister wrote from Scotland:
My dear Bessie
I feel quite at a loss how express to you & Frank my deepest sympathy. It has been a terrible shock to me & what it must be to you both so far away I can hardly think. It really seems too sad to think how long Matthew has lived & just when everyone thought he was over the worst to succumb to his injuries. He seemed to be getting on so well in his last P.C. dated Feb. 9th when he asked for tinned foods to be sent him. I wonder if had got a chill when being moved to Lahn, or if the journey proved too much for him…..In the back of my mind I always keep thinking there may be some mistake, such things have happened before…..It is a very anxious time just now, the awful strain of war is telling on everyone - when will it be over.
Bessie’s mother wrote on May 21st:
What can I say to you? My heart is just breaking for Frank & you. What a sore sore blow. I cannot help feeling that if the poor boy had been taken on June 2nd how much easier it would have been and he would been spared all these long months of suffering and loneliness that are what I mourn about. What must he have thought at not hearing from us but he never would believe that we were not writing. You have his post cards. Are there only three? I asked him always when writing how his wounds were and if he was able to be out of bed and go about but perhaps he was not allowed to say. He must have written many cards we never got as he said he had asked for money but he was ashamed to ask any more. Oh the poor dear, how gladly we would have sent him money or anything. I wonder if he got any of your letters or cards. He never said…..

I wonder if he thought he was dying?…This time may have been given him for ….preparation…..Matthew was not ours to tell his thoughts and feelings. I just keep saying “Father in thy gracious keeping leave we now our dear own sleeping” Poor Lizzie. My heart goes out to her. How is she bearing up? If they had only been married she would have been a daughter for you…..What a changed world for us all. I do not think there is much fear of us setting our affections on it now…. What mourning there will be at Unionville!
A friend wrote:
This war makes one feel desperate thinking of all the boys who are fighting and dying and suffering such terrible things while we older people remain safely at home. I sometimes wonder what the world will be like when it all over, so many young boys away, so many hearts and homes saddened forever
Bessie’s sister wrote:
We hoped against hope that the news of Matthew’s passing might not be true. Poor boy! What a long and weary time he must have had -- more than nine months. If we could only have done more for him. It has all been so vague and uncertain. Then the cruelty of rubbing out his address and returning Granny’s P.C.’s What are these people made of?….My dear Bessie, I grieve for you and Frank in your terrible sadness when you feel that Matthew died so far away from you, and that you were not permitted to do anything to make his lot easier and happier….Your fine, handsome boy. What a dear wee chappie he was when I first saw him…. One wonders what God’s plan for us all is. What is one to believe amid such an orgy of slaughter and grief?