Sentence:  They begged Grandma to let them put a bed in the kitchen for her , but Grandma said she was getting too old to sleep in strange beds and be seen with her teeth out , and that she hoped to die in privacy like a Christian and if the Lord willed it to <WSD>be</WSD> of pneumonia than it would have to be that way . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)