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FROM MY FATHER...

(Note: Peter here! I was as surprised as you will be to hear back from my father! Well, truthfully, not my father himself but me, listening to his voice...) 

My dear Peter,

It's my turn to write. This may come as a surprise, but I have been reading your many letters over these past few months--though I have to note that time means nothing to me now!--and paying close attention. That I write to you from "another place" does not mean that I'm unable to respond to everything you have to say. Well, perhaps not everything, because you have said so much, and I have enjoyed the memories that your letters inspired. But some of the big questions, some of the main ideas.

First, then, a big thank you for the letters. I don't like to boast but since you yourself suggest it, I think I can take a little bit of credit for your writing skills. One of the good things--and there were many not so good!--that you learned from me. As I think you Americans say these days, you "tell it like it is"! Or maybe this dates me. I have always had trouble keeping up with your American idioms. But you do tell it all so well. Sometimes your letters left me feeling a bit weepy. Sometimes, remembering those times, I laughed out loud.

Now to more serious matters. I'm glad that you re-read the many letters I wrote to you over the years and that you came to a kinder view of my role as your father. And I'm glad you noticed how often I doubted myself in that role (and you're right, I did always love to act the part!) It's true that I was not always the father I would have wanted to be. 

To my mind, the really big question was the one about sending you away to school when you were still so young. Was that really for your sake, you asked, with your best interests in mind? Well, as you yourself will concede, you did get the very best education a young man could wish for, at least in the academic sense. But you make it clear that it came at a cost to you. You had an excellent brain, by the end of it--but you were cut off from your heart. You had learned to armor yourself--your words--for fear of being hurt.

I see this now, Peter. I really do. Your letters are clear about the pain you felt at that early age, being separated from your family. You felt "sent away", as though you were not wanted. As though you were not loved. And I have to confess that I found it hard to make a show of the love I felt for you and Flora. It was not the way I was brought up myself. (And you're right, I think, looking that far back, to suggest that my mother's early death left a mark on me). I think it was the same for Peggy. It was just not in the tradition of our generation. More's the pity, I see now. I admire the ability to love more openly as it was learned by your generation and passed on to your children. Hugs are important. I learned that from you!

Your words now have me examining my own heart, my own motivations. I did honestly believe you'd get a better education at those boarding schools than you would have done at the local schools in Aspley Guise and, later, Bedford. Was there some class consciousness that went into that decision? Yes. I'll admit it. There was a bit of just plain snobbery involved. But also some history: it's the path I followed as a youngster. It's what I knew best, and trusted.

The other part of that question leaves me more uncomfortable. How much was it selfishness on my part to send you far away from home to go to school? Honestly, my illness was a real consideration. The constant pain was real. (I was tickled by the way you turned my "psychosomatic" diagnosis back on me. You're probably right!) Did I want you gone to spare myself further irritation? I like to think not. Did I want you gone so as to have your mother to myself? Oh, God, I hope not. My reflex response is NO, I'd never do such a thing. But there's a tiny itch in the back of my mind that thinks there might be at least a small element of truth in what you are suggesting. 

I'm going to take a break here, Peter. I know there are other important questions to address but they will have to wait. As things stand now, I no longer have the energy of youth. I promise I'll write again when I find time the time--as though that were a problem in all eternity! I'll end for the time being with this thought: I may not have showed it in the ways I should have or in ways you would have wanted, but I truly, deeply loved my son. My daughter, too, equally; but I loved my son. I loved you as a child and loved you as you grew up and became a man. I loved you for your doubts (like mine!) and faults (like mine!) and loved you for your struggles. I was immeasurably proud of your successes. I believe you know this now. I wish you had known it from the start. Well, from start to finish. 

There's much more to say, but that's enough for now. I'll sign off as I always did--and meant it! 

Affectionately, 

Your Father

THE GARDEN SHED

 Dear Harry,

You'll never guess how I spent the other morning. I'm usually at my computer keyboard hammering out a few more words as I'm doing now. But since completing the third draft of our "Dear Harry" book I have been taking a little time away from my usual pursuit. Unusual, though, for me to be spending time in the garden! (I should spend more time there! It's a good deal healthier for heart, mind and soul than the time I mis-spend worrying about the state of the nation and the world!)

It was a job that needed to be done. We have a long-neglected garden shed halfway down the long yard behind our house. Tall and narrow--some eight feet high, six wide, and a couple of feet deep--this wooden structure had been home to a few mostly unused gardening tools and multiple generations of assorted creepy-crawlies over the years, and had accumulated more than two decades of dust and dirt, and thick, looping, almost impenetrable spiderwebs.

I set to work first with a broom, reaching far up into the corners to sweep aside the densest layer of webs. Cleaning some of the dust from a high shelf, I soon realized that it was foolish to be working without a mask; the air was so thick with heavy particles as to be unbreathable. I took a break and climbed back up the long path and the steps (did I mention that we're located on the slope of a steep hill; and that my recent hip replacement surgery is not yet fully healed?) to the house. Lucky that the pandemic has left us with a good supply of face masks! I found a sturdy one and, for good measure, armed myself with a handy whisk broom to help out with the cleaning.

A half hour later I had the roof of the shed and that high shelf cleaned, and the walls brushed off to my satisfaction with the whisk broom. Time to take care of the floor, with its three-inch accumulation of solid, impacted dirt. That long-disused shovel proved its worth, along with a trowel to dig out the corners. Bending down that far and scooping up heavy shovels of dirt proved a challenge with my still gimpy leg, and by this time I was sweating profusely with the effort. 

Still, slowly, slowly a solid concrete floor began to reveal itself and soon there was nothing left but to use the broom to sweep away the last remnants of dirt. I was delighted to find myself rewarded with the imprint of several paw marks that had been made before the concrete dried and the inscription: SPUTNIK THE CAT, 1986.

That was the bonus, Harry. The real reward, as you well know, was the satisfaction of knowing it was a job well done. The gardening shed can wait for another 35 years, for all I care, before it needs another cleaning out. And someone other than myself will need to do the job.

By the way, I heard from a publisher today with an enthusiastic reaction to the "Dear Harry" manuscript I sent. "An immersive and powerful collection of letters," they said. And even offered me a contract, which I'll need time to think about.

With love, as always, Peter

ACUPUNCTURE

Dear Harry,

You would not have heard of it. Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese form of medicine still in widespread practice today. It involves the insertion of thin needles at strategic places in the body to promote the proper flow of qi, the life force, to all parts of the body. Some say this is fanciful, unscientific--and certainly it is so if you apply the rules of strictly Western rational scientific theory. Still, it has worked, empirically, since centuries before Western medicine and drugs were the accepted form of treatment for disease.

I mention this because I am currently myself experiencing a course of acupuncture treatments. It was recommended by a traditional Western doctor in my HMO (health management organization; no National Health in America, of course! No "socialized medicine" here!) as a way to address recurring pain from my hip replacement surgery earlier this year. 

The office I visit is, I suspect, a Chinese family affair. It's unclear how much English is understood. No matter. There's a good deal of pure intuition involved. No "bedside manner." The office is a little dingy, communication minimal. I lie flat on my back while the acupuncturist inserts the needles--mostly painlessly, now and then a little pricking sensation--and leaves them in place while she disappears for fifteen or twenty minutes. Then I'm invited to try "cupping" and massage for an additional $30. I have been indulging in this extra. Cupping involves multiple small "cups" which are placed on the back and (it seems; I can't actually see because obviously I'm face down) vacuum-suctioned in place for a further fifteen to twenty minutes.

The massage that follows is unlike any other I've ever had. It's short--ten minutes or so--and vigorous, starting with the back of the head and neck and working down the spine. Almost chiropractic--another medical practice which is now much more generally accepted than in your day., Harry But I think you would have liked it all. You were certainly open to alternative medical treatments including--we have talked about this before--the laying on of hands. Faith healing. Sometimes it worked. Remember the story of the local blacksmith, a wart charmer, who cured my warts?

Is this course of treatments working for me? Hard to say. Healing, in my experience, is never an overnight process. I will say that I noticed a remarkable improvement after just the first treatment, but I could not be sure whether this was in my body or my head. I did want to feel better, so maybe that was enough. But anyway I decided to continue with the treatments. My HMO pays for all but $5. The extra $30 is on me. But it strikes me as a very good deal, Harry, wouldn't you say?

I wish you had been able to find more effective treatments for your pain. You did suffer, and throughout your life, from a variety of ailments. Would acupuncture have helped? Who knows? I'm sure your would have been willing to try, as you tried so many other things. But anyway, you're beyond pain now. Perhaps that's good

With love, Peter

TELEPHONES

 Dear Harry,

I'm trying to remember where the telephone was in the Rectory at Aspley Guise during the war. I just can't place it. We must have had one. Perhaps it was used to rarely in those days that I can't remember where it was located. Same with the Vicarage at Braughing. The first telephone I can actually remember in any of our houses was at Sharnbrook. It was on a shelf at the far end of the hall, by the door to the kitchen. Only one, of course. Who would had more than one phone in a private home? A big black receiver placed on the main, boxy body and attached to it by a long, woven cord. 

Our telephone number was three digits, as much as was needed for the entire village.  Anything outside the village--to Bedford, say, a few miles to the south--was a toll call. Anything further required the assistance of an operator. Toll calls could get expensive, so we kept them very brief. No chit-chat. And there was a box that stood beside it with a coin slot in the top so that people (we had boarders in those days) could put the money in to pay for their calls. It was an honor system.

You'd be amazed, Harry, by my telephone today. I carry it around with me, in my shirt pocket! It's flat, smaller than one of those packs of twenty cigarettes--Players or Senior Service--and it weighs not much more. My number is ten digits, including an area code. And each country has its own code, so that I can dial direct, any time, day or night. Except you don't dial, these days, you punch in numbers on a little keyboard. England's country code is 44. I can call Matthew any time I want. Or the grandchildren. Better still, I can "Facetime" them. Imagine, the front of the phone is a screen where I can see their faces as they're talking! 

But that's just the beginning. On my telephone, I can check the weather. I can summon up a radar map to see what weather conditions are headed out way. I can check the stock market in New York or London or Japan, minute by minute. I can write letters to my friends and family; I send them off with a click and they reach the recipient instantaneously. I can read any newspaper, anywhere in the world. I can read more books than you'd find in your local library. I can watch television, movies, news. I can play games (Peggy would love the different versions of solitaire!) I can go to the market and buy my whole list of food, to be delivered to my door. I can order food from local restaurants. I can tell the time or see the weather in any art of the world. I can take pictures with my telephone, Harry! I don't have to send them off to be "developed" and wait a week for the prints to be returned. I can see the images instantaneously and send them out to be printed on the machine I have in my office. I can do all this "remote", wirelessly, without having to connect at all!

And all the above is just to scratch the surface of what this tiny, hand-held device can do. 

So yes, Harry, you'd be amazed. I am myself amazed. But this kind of "progress" comes at a cost. Like everyone else I know, I'm tied to my telephone. I'm easy to reach, even by people I don't know, even by people trying to sell me things or get me to vote for one politician or another. It's a constant source of annoying pestering. Worse, the thing is addictive. Go out to a restaurant these days and you'll find that half the people there are not talking to anyone, not even those who share their table, they're glued to the little screen on their telephone. Walk down the street, it's the same. Everyone walking along paying more attention to their phone that to what's happening all around them. People actually get killed that way! 

So this instrument that was supposed to connect people has the opposite effect. It's alienating. It no longer serves, it lords it over us, demanding constant attention. All in all, Harry, I'm beginning to think I'd rather have the telephone that sat on the shelf at the back of the hall in the vicarage at Sharnbrook. 

With love, Peter

DISTRESS

Dear Harry,

This will be a hard one to write because it's so hard to describe in words. I wish we could sit down in person to talk about these things. Not possible, of course. But I wonder if you ever experienced anything similar to what I'm experiencing right now? 

I woke this morning once again in deep distress. It's not depression so much--though that may be a part of it. More accurately, it's sense of dislocation, of desperation, a sense of having been cut adrift from the moorings on which I have relied these many years and heading uncontrollably downstream toward some unknowable disaster. 

All my life I have considered myself a rational man--reasonable in all things, intelligent, well-thought of, relatively calm and relatively secure. Of course I have had my moments of insecurity. There have been worries about money along the way, and worries about jobs: where would I find the next one? And the personal ones: am I good enough? Am I happy? And so on.

But I have always had what I think of as the moorings, the basic truths about myself and the world around me, the things I can rely on. This feeling is different. It's not so much in my personal life. I have family, friends, relative financial security, a social environment that is by any measure enviable, privileged. I live in a neighborhood that is protected from the instability that threatens others.

No, this dis-ease is bigger than all that, bigger than my little self, bigger than the reasonable, thoughtful and considerate man I still believe myself to be. It's existential. That big. When I say I feel unmoored it's in the bigger context of a world in which I no longer feel at home, where all the values I once cherished, and still consider in my heart and mind to be foundational have been cast aside in the rush toward a future that is now uncertain--not only for myself but for humanity at large.

Even here in my own house, amongst my own family and friends, I am oppressed down the the roots of my being by this feeling of existential not-belonging, of being superfluous, superannuated, irrelevant. 

Is it age, Harry? Did you begin to feel the same when you were my age--not long before your death? I know that's a part of it. The alienation echoes what I'm feeling in my body. Not quite there. There is the pain, of course, that results not only from my hip replacement surgery but occurs everywhere--knees, feet, neck and back. The body ages. Nothing to be done about that except to keep as fit as diet, exercise, rest and medical attention will allow. 

So yes, the body is a part of it. And no. The distress is much bigger than the body. And in its way more painful because it is all-consuming. I find it helpful to sit in meditation and am grateful for the now more than 25 years I have dedicated to learning, learning, learning as best I can how to do it, where it can lead me, the serenity it can bring. 

Still that refuge is, in my experience these days, a temporary and deficient one. I obviously have more to learn. But everywhere I turn I seem to "know" that part of it already. I have read it, thought about it, internalized it, practiced it. And still there is something missing somewhere deep inside, and I don't know what it is.

I wish we could talk about this, Harry. I really do. I think you would have some wisdom that I don't. Even though I know you struggled with it, you had religion. Is that it? Faith? Trust in some power greater than we foolish human beings. Something beyond both reason and unreason? Salvation? Redemption? Belief in an afterlife, in heaven, with God?

I'm thinking now the missing piece might be just... surrender.

With love. Your son, Peter

AT THE DENTIST

Dear Harry,

I had an appointment with the dentist yesterday. Dr. Joe reminded me that I've been visiting his office since 1995; so, more than 25 years. A good thing. It was he who first put the fear of G*d in me about my teeth. I'd lose them all, he told me, if I didn't start to floss.

Well-meaning dental hygienists had told me this before. When I first brought my teeth to an American dentist he was horrified.  English dentistry has a bad reputation over here, especially for those of us who were born in the first half of the 20th century. I hope things have improved since then, but I know that you had lost every one of your teeth by the time you were my age. The ones you had were kept in a jar on the bathroom shelf. They needed to be taken out every night and put back in the morning. Peggy's were not much better. 

I remember it was torture going to the dentist as a child. Flora and I were terrified. For simple fillings, as I remember it, they didn't even use novocaine in those days. That was reserved for major jobs, extractions, and so on. Even the smallest filling was an agonizing encounter with the dreaded drill. The sound alone was enough to induce excruciating pain... and that was before the drill hit the nerve.

Did you ever hear of flossing, Harry? I doubt it. It was unheard of in our day--at least by the time I left England for good around 1960--and I was not about to start such a heathen practice just because I'd arrived in America. That lasted until I started out with Dr. Joe, an unsparing and determined task-master of Asian descent, who told me I'd lose all my teeth in a matter of years if I failed to change my ways. 

I have flossed ever since. Every evening. Well, except when I forget. Which is not very often these days. My report yesterday was excellent. My bottom teeth were in good shape, my top teeth "immaculate." They'll serve me well, says Dr. Joe, "for another 25 years."

Which is fine by me. I'll be 110 years old.

Your son in good dental health, Peter