Sunday, Oct 14, 1883 Five years ago tonight my dear Gertrude died. It has been almost such a day, one of the loveliest October days. I went over to the cemetery after breakfast. A few flowers were still blooming on her grave. On poor Maurices grave the morning glories which I transplanted in June after he died, had ripened their seed and the vines lay brown and withered on the little trellis above his grave. Both these members of our household gone forever, each of them so closely a part of us yet in so widely different ways; how sad and strange it seemed that though still a part of us they carry theirs in eternal silence unmindful of all our tenderness. Dear Gertrude. I am learning to live without her presence but not without daily communion with her sweet spirit. Her absence is becoming a part of my life as her companionship was and I thank Heaven for the sweet legacy of her matchless and beautiful character and her love that the grave cannot hide from me. I have felt less sharp sorrow on this anniversary of her death than ever before and can think of her now without tears and without that despair that sought her everywhere, while all things connected with her grow more sacred and all my memories of her more tender and more full of a sweet satisfaction, gradually fitting me better to live the remnant of my days alone. I feel cheerful and hopeful as she always wished me to and always tried to make me feel and I rest in the sweet expectancy that this separation is but temporary; that we shall met again and for eternity. Wrote to Alice, to Mr. Conkey, Ferdinand Jury. Miss McCoy & Mr. C. M Kurtz.
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