4 JULY, 2021

Dear Harry, 

     The truth is, you were a mystery to me. An enigma. Who were you? Where did you come from? 

     I knew this much: your father, my grandfather, was a prominent electrical engineer in the early days of electricity. Amongst his other achievements he invented something called oil immersion switchgear, allowing manufacturers to safely harness high voltage power for industrial purposes. A handful or studio portraits and less formal snapshots in the great tome my mother called the “family album” show a thoughtful, elegant gentleman with a generous, neatly-trimmed mustache and dark, twinkling eyes. His benign humor is evident in the soft gleam of those eyes and the gentle curve of his lips. 

     Your mother, my real grandmother and your father’s first wife, died when you were only 14 years old. We never spoke about this, but I’m convinced that it must have left a deep wound in your heart. I did come to understand—did my own mother tell me this?—that your father’s grief left you in some way responsible, along with your older sister Nancy, for the care of your two younger brothers, Donald and Neil. 

    The grandmother I knew, Granny Murcott, became a part of the family when your father remarried after a respectable period of mourning. Then your father died, of a heart attack I believe, on a business trip to New Zealand, when I was a year-and-a-half old. The way I calculate it—my mother was 30 years older to the day than I, and you were a year older than she—you would have been 32 or 33 years old. Which is still a young age to lose your father. (I was nearly 60 when you died…) 

    Though she lived on for a while in the village where we lived, I believe you were never really close with your stepmother, Granny Murcott, who died when I was about 5 years old. From what I know from others about the loss of parents at an early age, then, I conclude that this history must have affected you in ways I never knew because you never talked about it, at least not with your children. Perhaps you thought it inappropriate. 

    Still, thinking back on it today, I would have liked to know. It would surely help me to unwrap the enigma to which your silence left me heir. I think I might have been able to love you more. 

Affectionately, in retrospect, your son, 

Peter