Don't Lose Heart

Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter to John Adams when Adams’ wife, Abigail, died.  The background here is that Adams and Jefferson served together on the committee that drafted the Declaration, then later had a serious falling out over politics and did not speak to each other for years.  A mutual friend got them back together and they enjoyed a very close relationship during their retirement, leaving behind a treasure trove of letters.  (Jefferson wrote from experience.  He lost father at 14, his best friend at 25, his wife at 33, and all but one of his children.)  He and Adams both passed away on the same day: July 4, 1826 –the 50th anniversary of the Declaration that they labored so valiantly to create.

MONTICELLO, November 13, 1818
The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable, time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both, that the term is not very distant, at which we are to deposit in the same cerement, our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascend in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.
-Thomas Jefferson

Thanks to Denton for contributing this beautiful letter.