In early May 1989, Keith Whitley drove his wife, Lorrie Morgan, to the Nashville airport and handed her a card before her flight. Three days later, he was gone. The card was all about her. It asked if she would like to know what he wished for her, then wished that worries and troubles would never linger in her life, that hard times would only make her stronger, and that she would rise each day with sunlight in her heart, success in her path and answers to her prayers. It closed with the smile he always loved to see in her eyes, and it was signed, “I love you, Keith.”
“Would you like to know what I wish for you?”
A Goodbye That Didn’t Look Like One
Lorrie was flying to Alaska for a promotional trip. Keith offered to take her to the airport, and before she left, he gave her the card. There was nothing unusual about that. Keith often gave her cards.
She did not open it at the airport. She read it later, on her way back home. Looking back, Lorrie called the card spooky and said she felt Keith had been trying to tell her something. The reporter who interviewed her wrote that its message sounded like a farewell.
What the Card Said
The card did not talk about goodbyes, and it did not talk about Keith. Every line was about Lorrie. It called her life precious to him, and it wished that worries, troubles and problems would never stay long in it.
“May they only make you that much stronger and able and wise.”
From there it wished her sunlight in her heart every morning, success in whatever path she took, and answers to her prayers. It ended with the smile he loved to see in her eyes. It was a few short lines from a husband to his wife. Only later did they start to sound like something more.
Three Days Later
On May 9, 1989, Keith’s brother-in-law found him at the couple’s home near Nashville. He was 34 years old. He was pronounced dead from acute alcohol poisoning, the end of a struggle with drinking that had followed him since his teenage years in Sandy Hook, Kentucky.
Keith had plans for the days ahead. He meant to write songs for himself and Lorrie to record together once she came home from her tour.
On May 12, more than 500 people came to his funeral. His boyhood friend Ricky Skaggs gave the eulogy.
“If I Had Been Home”
Two weeks after the funeral, Lorrie sat down with a UPI reporter for her only interview about Keith’s death. She said she was certain he would not have died if she had been home that day.
She was honest about what their life had been. Keith’s manager, Don Light, warned her about his drinking when they first got together. She believed love, and someone always at his side, would be enough. She put her own career on the back burner to look after him, and every time the phone rang while he was on the road, she feared the worst.
But she remembered the man just as clearly. In three years of marriage, she said, he never said one ugly word to her and never raised his voice. She said she had never known love like the love Keith showed her, and she called him the best country singer who ever lived.
The hardest part, she said, was their son, Jesse Keith, who was not yet two. That morning he had asked to see his daddy. Lorrie told him Keith was in heaven, singing to Jesus.
Less than a week after burying her husband, Lorrie was back on her tour bus, with shows in Kansas, Iowa and North Dakota.
Still the Love of Her Life
Lorrie has spent the decades since championing Keith’s music. On the 37th anniversary of his death this past May, she shared old footage of the two of them singing together and wrote that he would forever be the love of her life.
The card Keith gave her at the airport was only a few lines long. But every one of them told her the same thing: her life was precious to him.
Do you remember where you were when you heard Keith Whitley was gone?