Letter from Dee — final page, '…coma and not hemorrhage… I love you both — Dee'
Book 3, Page 14 ·1953
Transcription
[Final sheet of the letter; blue fountain-pen cursive on ruled letter paper. Upper third inked, signature centered, the rest of the sheet blank with faint show-through.]
has anything left to breathe with at all. So it looks as though my prayers will be answered — coma and not hemorrhage. He is rousing up now and wants to try to stack money from Bob’s pig. So I’ll say good-night and I love you both —
Dee.
AI Notes
Final page of the multi-page letter from Emma Dee Walker Corbell to her parents (cf. p012 opening, p016 middle, p013 spread). Blue fountain-pen cursive on ruled letter paper. The writer reports a grim consolation — that her son Puck’s death will be by coma rather than hemorrhage, the latter the medically feared outcome of the cancer that had already cost him a leg (Apr 27 1953, see book-002 p219-222). ‘Bob’s pig’ is a piggy bank belonging to her elder son Robert Lawrence Corbell III (b. ca. 1940, Puck’s elder brother; called ‘Bob’ here, distinct from his father Dr. Robert L. Corbell Jr. who is also occasionally ‘Bob’). The lower two-thirds of the sheet is blank with faint show-through. The likely date is autumn 1953 (Tuesday), in the final weeks before Puck’s death on Wed. Dec 2 1953.
The letter begins on p012 (‘Tuesday — My Folks — …’) and the middle page is on p016. ‘Bob’s pig’ is the piggy bank of Puck’s elder brother Robert Lawrence Corbell III (also called ‘Bob’ in this family). The clinical detail — ‘coma and not hemorrhage’ as the merciful outcome — places this letter in the final stage of Puck’s cancer, weeks before his death on 2 Dec 1953 (cf. obituary on book-002 p227).