“Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team,” Billy Graham said in a statement. “No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support.

Ailing evangelist Billy Graham said Monday he and his wife Ruth are deciding together where they will be buried, an announcement apparently sparked by a recent report the family is feuding over the issue.

The couple’s graves had long been expected to be at The Cove, a Bible training center near the Grahams’ mountainside home at Montreat, but now those plans are uncertain. Mark DeMoss, a spokesman for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, acknowledged Wednesday that the family is now divided on the issue. He said the burial could be at The Cove or at a museum and library being built at the association’s Charlotte headquarters.

Billy Graham’s Sons Argue Over a Final Resting Place. The burial issue threatens to tear asunder what some have called the royal family of American religion, and Billy is being asked to make a Solomon-like choice between the wishes of his heir and his wife of 63 years.