Craig Strickland‘s widow, Helen Strickland, shared the love letter that the late country singer wrote to her on their wedding day in a new Instagram post on Wednesday, January 6.
“Today I found this precious treasure Craig wrote for me to read on the day of our wedding,” she wrote, alongside a handwritten note penned by her husband. “The Lord is good always … I know this because in the the most heart aching moments, when it seems too difficult to bare, God knows just how to make me smile. ‘I almost wrote Greg?’ – Lol, oh #craigstrickland, how I love you.”
In the letter, Craig shared his pre-wedding day jitters with his then-future wife. “Dear Helen (my love), I can’t believe the time is finally here where I get to be the luckiest person in the world and become your life partner forever,” he writes. “You are someone that I could never have even placed in my wildest dreams as becoming my wife. I laugh when I think about all the things I LOVE about you because there are so many!”
Craig then gushed about the former Miss Arkansas USA. “I love your smile and how you laugh at my one liner comments . . . I love how much you care about getting the food you cook for me to be exactly the right taste,” he continues. “I love how you can cook asparagus 4 different ways. I love seeing the joy you get out of me doing something simple like cleaning the living room! Helen, I am so excited to begin this journey with you. Like I told my dad right after meeting you, GOD is all over it!!!”
The Backroad Anthem singer was found dead this past Monday, January 4, after he was reported missing for seven days following a duck hunting trip with his friend Chase Morland. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol told Us Weekly that Craig’s body was recovered in the Kaw Lake region north of Tulsa, Oklahoma, about a quarter mile from where Morland was found on December 28.
Helen shared this past Monday that Craig’s beloved 9-year-old dog, Sam, refused to leave Morland’s side until authorities found his body. Sam, Helen, and other Strickland family members attended Morland’s visitation on Tuesday night.
The grieving wife also shared details about her husband’s death, saying he felt no pain in his final moments. “The night of the accident he fought his way out of the water and up a hill before the stages of hypothermia set in,” Helen previously shared on Instagram. “He experienced no pain in his final moments and simply felt like he was falling asleep. They found him lying in the shape of a cross looking up to his Father.”