Keith Whitley’s Final Love Letter To Lorrie Morgan

Keith Whitley’s Final Love Letter To Lorrie Morgan | Society Of Rock Videos

via Stone Country / Youtube

Keith Whitley and Lorrie Morgan were a power couple and had one of the greatest country love stories of their time.

Whitley met and began a romantic relationship with Morgan during his tour to promote L.A. to Miami. The couple got married in November 1986 and had one son, Jesse Keith Whitley, in June 1987. Whitley adopted Morgan’s daughter, Morgan Anastasia Gaddis, who was born during Lorrie’s previous marriage to Ron Gaddis, a musician from George Jones’ road band.

Before their marriage, Keith’s manager, Don Light, informed Lorrie of Keith’s alcoholism and Lorrie truly believed it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Sadly, Whitley died from alcohol poisoning on May 9, 1989. He was 33 years old and had been married to Lorrie for about three years.

“I’d been around alcoholism throughout my life,”

Lorrie said in an interview a year after her husband’s death.

“I never, never expected anything as bad as Keith had it. I thought it would just take love and someone to help him to get through with it. He wanted it that way. But something inside of him wouldn’t let him. It literally was like he had cancer and could not control.”

Lorrie experienced six months of pure bliss into their marriage until his husband turned into “somebody… I didn’t know.”

“Every time the phone would ring, it was in the back of my mind that there was somebody calling to tell me he’s been in a wreck or died of alcohol. It was a living hell. I was on pins and needles when he was on the road,” she said.

A few days before Keith’s death, he dropped her off at the airport for a promo trip to Alaska. He gave her a card which read:

“Would you like to know what I wish for you? ‘If I could have any wish I wanted, this is my wish: That in your life which is so precious to me, may worries, troubles and problems never linger. May they only make you that much stronger and able and wise. May you rise each day with sunlight in your heart, success in your path, answers to your prayers, and that smile that I always love to see in your eyes. I love you, Keith.”

She said,

“When I read the card on the way back home, I felt like he was trying to tell me something.”

“I am thankful for those three years, as hard as the bad times were. In those three years I’ve never in my life known love like Keith Whitley showed me,” she expressed.

“A lot of people never experience that. That was a lifetime feeling.”

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