Before the time came to return to Haifa in November Shoghi Effendi went to London to purchase a few more things for the furnishing of the now completed Archives building and in anticipation of transferring after his arrival all the precious historical materials he had exhibited and stored in the six rooms in which they had previously been housed. While we were there the great epidemic of Asiatic influenza was sweeping Europe and we both fell ill with it. We had an excellent physician, whom the Guardian liked and trusted, and the attack was not a particularly severe one, though he did have quite a high fever for a few days. The doctor insisted that Shoghi Effendi should not arrange to leave London until he had been without any abnormal temperature for a week and to this he consented. In spite of his fever he read a great deal in bed and attended to his mail and cables. His illness at no time incapacitated him in any way, though it left him weak and with almost no appetite.
When one week had passed from the time he first felt the effects of his influenza he was busy working on his last beautiful map, the one he called "the half-way point of the Ten Year Crusade". He had requested me to have a large table put in his room on which he could spread his map and for hours he worked at it, checking with me various figures and data against the many notes he kept showing the status of the Crusade all over the world. When I remonstrated with him about standing for so many hours to do this work when he was still so exhausted and begged him to wait a few days until he was feeling stronger, he said "No, I must finish it, it is worrying me. There is nothing left to do but check it. I have one or two names to add that I have found in this mail, and I will finish it today." While he was working he repeated once again the words I had so often heard him say during the last years of his life: "This work is killing me! How can I go on with this? I shall have to stop it. It is too much. Look at the number of places I have to write down. Look how exact I have to be!" He was tired when it was finally done and went back to his bed where he sat and read reports. So vast was the amount of material reaching him all the time from various parts of the Bahá'í world that if he did not keep abreast of it through reading many hours every day he risked never being able to catch up with it again.
But the strains and pressures of his life had been too many and early in the morning of 4 November he suffered a coronary thrombosis. Death must have come to him so gently and so suddenly that he died without even knowing he was ascending to another realm. When I went to his room in the morning to ask him how he was I did not recognize that he was dead. His eyes were half-open with no look of pain, alarm or surprise in them. He lay as if he had wakened up and was quietly thinking about something in a relaxed and comfortable position. How terribly he had suffered when he suddenly learned of the death of his grandfather! Now he had been called softly and quickly away to join Him. The suffering and shock were this time to be the portion of someone else.
- Ruhiyyih Khanum ('The Priceless Pearl')
When one week had passed from the time he first felt the effects of his influenza he was busy working on his last beautiful map, the one he called "the half-way point of the Ten Year Crusade". He had requested me to have a large table put in his room on which he could spread his map and for hours he worked at it, checking with me various figures and data against the many notes he kept showing the status of the Crusade all over the world. When I remonstrated with him about standing for so many hours to do this work when he was still so exhausted and begged him to wait a few days until he was feeling stronger, he said "No, I must finish it, it is worrying me. There is nothing left to do but check it. I have one or two names to add that I have found in this mail, and I will finish it today." While he was working he repeated once again the words I had so often heard him say during the last years of his life: "This work is killing me! How can I go on with this? I shall have to stop it. It is too much. Look at the number of places I have to write down. Look how exact I have to be!" He was tired when it was finally done and went back to his bed where he sat and read reports. So vast was the amount of material reaching him all the time from various parts of the Bahá'í world that if he did not keep abreast of it through reading many hours every day he risked never being able to catch up with it again.
But the strains and pressures of his life had been too many and early in the morning of 4 November he suffered a coronary thrombosis. Death must have come to him so gently and so suddenly that he died without even knowing he was ascending to another realm. When I went to his room in the morning to ask him how he was I did not recognize that he was dead. His eyes were half-open with no look of pain, alarm or surprise in them. He lay as if he had wakened up and was quietly thinking about something in a relaxed and comfortable position. How terribly he had suffered when he suddenly learned of the death of his grandfather! Now he had been called softly and quickly away to join Him. The suffering and shock were this time to be the portion of someone else.
- Ruhiyyih Khanum ('The Priceless Pearl')