Goodbye Under the Baobab Tree

“The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart.” — from Psalm 34

Mary Livingstone was a brave missionary herself. She had grown up in Africa and spoke Setswana from childhood. She ran schools for little children, made soap, candles and clothes, and nursed the sick. The people called her Ma-Robert, which means “mother of Robert,” after her eldest son.

But Mary had spent years apart from her husband. In 1858 she set out with him for the Zambezi, but she was expecting a baby and had to stay with her parents at Kuruman. There her daughter Anna Mary was born. Later Mary went back to Scotland, where she was lonely and unhappy without David. At last she decided she must be with him. She left the children with family and friends, and sailed for Africa.

She arrived at the end of January 1862. For a few weeks, at a place called Shupanga beside the Zambezi, Mary and David lived together again, while the men built a new steamboat. After so many years apart, they had a little time side by side.

Then, in April, Mary caught a fever. This time the medicine did not help. On the evening of 27 April 1862 she died, with David beside her. She was forty-one. The next day she was buried under a great baobab tree near the house.

David was heartbroken. He wrote in his journal that it was the first heavy blow of his life, and that it took away all his strength. He had loved her when he married her, he wrote, and the longer he lived with her, the more he loved her. He wept for her, and he prayed for their children. He trusted that she had gone to be with God, a little ahead of him. And he began to see how much his long journeys had cost her.

When someone we love dies, it is right to cry, and God does not hurry us. He stays very close to people whose hearts are broken.

Dear God, thank you for the people I love. When I am sad, please come close to me and comfort me. Amen.