https://lettersofnote.com/2011/02/04/darling-goodnight-and-goodbye/
Above: Rattanbai Jinnah.
Above: Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
(image courtesy of Dr. Ghulam Nabi Kazi)
Rattanbai "Ruttie" Jinnah, (born as Rattanbai Petit, 1900-1929) was the wife of Muhammad Ali Jinnah — an important figure in the creation of Pakistan and the country's founder. Additionally, Rattanbai Petit belonged to some of the most influential families of the subcontinent, the Petit family through her father, the Jinnah family through her marriage and her daughter Dina Wadia was married to the businessman Neville Wadia of the Wadia family.
In 1918, aged just 18, Rattanbai converted to Islam and married her husband. The following few years were blissfully happy for the newlyweds, but a rift soon developed as Jinnah's hectic political life took hold. In 1928, having arrived in Marseilles to receive medical treatment, a gravely ill Ruttie penned the following beautiful farewell letter to her then-estranged husband. Four months later, on her 29th birthday, she lost her battle with cancer.
The letter:
S. S. Rajputana.
Marseilles 5 Oct 1928.
Darling – thank you for all you have done. If ever in my bearing your over tuned senses found any irritability or unkindness – be assured that in my heart there was place only for a great tenderness and a greater pain – a pain my love without hurt. When one has been as near to the reality of Life – (which after all is Death) as I have been dearest, one only remembers the beautiful and tender moments and all the rest becomes a half veiled mist of unrealities. Try and remember me beloved as the flower you plucked and not the flower you tread upon.
I have suffered much sweetheart because I have loved much. The measure of my agony has been in accord to the measure of my love.
Darling I love you – I love you – and had I loved you just a little less I might have remained with you – only after one has created a very beautiful blossom one does not drag it through the mire. The higher you set your ideal the lower it falls.
I have loved you my darling as it is given to few men to be loved. I only beseech you that our tragedy which commenced with love should also end with it.
– Darling Goodnight and Goodbye
Ruttie
I had written to you at Paris with the intention of posting the letter here – but I felt that I would rather write to you afresh from the fullness of my heart. R.
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