A Family at Cross-Purposes

Keith told her that Billy had agreed. And Ruth? Billy was working on her, Keith said.

Cornwell then visited Montreat to ask Ruth where she wanted to be buried. Ruth repeated her position. That's when Ned Graham decided he needed to get the notarized statement, which his mother dictated. "My Final Wishes Concerning My Burial Site" says, in part:

"Since it is impossible for me to be buried at my 'first home' in China, my next choice is the beautiful mountains of Western North Carolina which I have loved and where I have lived for the past 60 years. . . ." A number of years ago, the document continues, she and Bill "agreed that we would be buried together near the chapel at The Cove. The Memorial Garden at Chatlos Chapel was prepared for that very purpose."

"Bill has recently talked to me about being buried at the Billy Graham Library/Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina. However, I want to make it very clear that I am standing by our original agreement. My final wish is to be buried at the Cove. Under no circumstances am I to be buried in Charlotte, North Carolina."

In an interview with The Washington Post yesterday, Keith said, "Ruth wants to be buried next to Billy, first and foremost." When asked about her objections to Charlotte, he replied, "In her physical condition, she agrees with the last person who talked to her."

Personality Matter

Franklin knew where his mother wanted to be buried but until recently never talked to her about his plans, leaving that to his father.

It was not the first time he and his mother saw things differently. By his own admission, he was always a headstrong child. Once, Ruth, fed up with the teenage Franklin's smoking, made him smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. He vomited a half-dozen times but never gave in. On another occasion, Ruth, angry at Franklin's pinching his sisters in the car while on a trip to a fast-food restaurant, locked him in the trunk. When she opened it up, he asked for a cheeseburger without meat, French fries and a Coke.

He was sent to a Christian boarding school on Long Island, N.Y., then to a small college in Texas and in 1974, at 22, had a conversion experience in a hotel in Jerusalem. A month after that, he joined an international aid ministry that eventually became Samaritan's Purse, and channeled some of his energy into piloting planes carrying food, medicine and the Gospel to places such as Rwanda, Haiti and recently New Orleans. With a budget of $264 million, Samaritan's Purse is among the country's 50 largest charities.

Ned, six years younger than Franklin and the baby of the family, was the quieter child. Named for his mother's father, a surgical missionary in China, he says he was spoiled, and he wonders occasionally whether his siblings resent him for that.

That's not to say that, on occasion, he didn't give Ruth fits. "In my late teens, early 20s maybe, I'd be out late drinking, getting stoned. I'd come home at 2 or so and Mother would be up. She'd just kiss me and say, 'Ned, I'm glad you're home. Love ya, I'm going to bed now.' "

Now, he says, it's his turn to take care of his mother. Two years ago, Christina assumed the daily operation of their East Gate Ministries, a Bible and training ministry in China, so that he could return to Montreat. He found his mother severely undernourished, he says, and his father's health also deteriorating. He had the house adjusted to make it easier for his father to walk around, started his mother on a special diet and made sure she visited the beauty salon once a week.

As he heard reports this fall about the library from his sisters, one of whom compared it to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, he said, he grew concerned that it would belittle his father's ministry. His brother dismissed his concerns. His sister Anne was sympathetic but unwilling to challenge Franklin openly, he continued. Anne's own ministry, like Ned's, receives funding from the BGEA.

"I've spent the last few years trying to help my parents preserve their mental acuity, independence and dignity," he said over lunch in the spacious Cove dining room. "And I'm saddened that the family is not unified on this issue."

He says he would like to see the library become more about Franklin and less about his father who, in his view, is already memorialized at the Cove. He is close enough to his dad to know that, as he puts it, "there never would have been a Billy Graham without a Ruth Graham."

His parents are finally home together most days now. They eat supper watching old movies like "The Sound of Music" and listening to Ned or Christina read the Bible. Of late, Ned has chosen stories about decision-making and God's solace in troubled times.

Billy Graham sits next to Ruth's hospital bed for long periods, stroking her arms and her face.

Ned knows that his father hates conflict, which is one reason his dad has stayed away in recent years from the political battles of religious conservatives. But this is one dispute Billy Graham can't avoid.

As Cornwell ends her short speech to Billy that November evening, Billy says, "I sure appreciate what you say, and I have no comment. I've heard all this before."

Cornwell is not dissuaded.

"I tell you, if you're buried there I'll dig you up and move you here," she says.

Ruth chuckles from her bed. "I'll be one of the pallbearers," she says.

At the sound of Ruth's voice, Billy's face softens toward Cornwell, as he says, "I'll just think and pray about what you've said."