Reflections on Family, Loss, and Love

May 2025

I’ve been transcribing Alex and Sylvia’s letters (in chronological order, finally!) like a madwoman but I haven’t been posting them all as I process their story. Today, I’ve decided to write a little bit rather than post a letter. I feel like I’ve gotten to know Sylvia, in particular, so much better by reading her earliest letters all at once. She sounds warm, funny, strong-willed and like a bit of a scatter-brain, which I love. Alex at time reprimands and reminds her of things she’s forgotten, or for not writing longer letters to him.

When I first began writing this blog, and going through their letters (all willy nilly with whatever I happened to choose that day) I was in my early 20s, the same age as Sylvia was when she was writing. At the time she didn’t seem 25, she wrote with elegant handwriting about serious adult business (taking care of a newborn, her husband away at war) while I was piecing together part time work and living with roommates. But now I read her letters, at the ripe old age of 39 – older than she ever got to be – and two changes have happened:

First, I see her more clearly as a 25 year old now. She was flirty and sometimes flighty, creative, emotional, and a little bit wild. She delighted in her daughter and looked to her older husband (31 at the start of their letters) for security and comfort.

Second, even though I was the same age as her before and now I’m older than her, I feel more connected to her than I did before I became a mother. I feel the weight of her love for her daughter Adrienne and understand so much more clearly why she wrote down all the baby’s milestones and measurements for Alex. When I read those, I look to my own notes to see how my boys’ growth compared to Adrienne’s. I also understand the hole her death left behind more clearly. I feel the weight of it as a mom, not just as her granddaughter. I feel robbed of her guidance, as I’m sure Adrienne did and my dad, David, does. I recognize that part of her knew she was fragile, but that she couldn’t have known that she’d only live to be 32 as she dreamed about their life as a family after the war.

Reading all these letters in such quick succession is like drinking from an emotional firehose. I walk around New York with their words running through my head. I worry that I can’t remember Alex’s voice when I read them. I hope they’d like who I am. I miss Adrienne and wish I could share every sweet word her mother wrote about her.

All this makes me verr into a cocktail of melancholy and gratitude. I’m didn’t get to meet my grandma but I am now getting glimpses of her that feel, at times, like she’s talking to me.

This weekend I got to attend my cousin’s (on my mom’s side) wedding in Pittsburgh (congratulations Adam and Emily!) and am still basking in the glow that my big, warm, kind, fun family leaves me with when we’re all together. Walking into a room filled with my relatives is like being on an episode of Cheers, “where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came.” In dealing with a more immediate loss of my uncle on that side of the family, we all reflected on how glad we were for the excuse to be together. COVID cancelled a lot of wedding receptions in our family – including mine – and weddings are an excuse to celebrate new family formations, new inclusion, and new traditions.

While I’ve been spending time living in the past through these letters – and mourning all the loss they carry – I was reminded in the best way of all the people still here, who love me (as I love them) – just by the happy accident that we are family. (Luckily, a really great one.)