A letter from grandpa 1980

Mr. et Mme Steinhardt
Les Neriedes Actea No. 85
06350 Golfe- Juan France

7th March 1980

Dear Phil

Many thanks for your letter and we both had great joy with it.

I thank you for your wishes, but unfortunately I am very, very sick, and it is a matter of many months before I shall not be an invalid as I am now. I have lost nearly 45lbs, look like a skeleton, have difficulty to eat, difficulty to go to the lav and can walk about 300 - 400 yards at the utmost. I am weak like a kitten. Even to write this letter is a big effort for me. I get so easily breathless. My heart is just old and tired and is being kept by medicine, but this medicine is also a bit of poison. Poor Granny is absolutely finished with looking after me. I cannot do any shopping, I have not been for months to Cannes. I am nearly 74 and at that age anything can happen.

I found your letter very moving. I can understand you very much.

If by any miracle I should get better you could come to us. But I doubt it, because if things don't change Granny and I could never cope with it. Granny is even sleeping in the little room because I am so restless at night, and she must have a bit of rest, otherwise she will collapse.
Unfortunately, to visit Heini will be impossible for you because Erna is also very sick and cannot look after Heini and herself. She may even have to go into a home. We are old and fighting for our life and it is not so sure we shall survive. It is sad, but unfortunately it is so.
Heini and Erna are just as helpless as Granny and I am. We are dragging ourselves around and the doctor had to come all the last week, every day to see me, I could not walk the few hundred yards to him.

I understand you Phil, you behave sometimes contrary to what you really want to. It is stronger than you are. You have a nice nature, you are an intelligent adult now, [I was 19] but sometimes, or often you behave contrary to your nature and annoy your parents and everybody. (Not that they ever complained to us or mentioned it).

My dear Phil there is one thing you must learn in life and that is to be tolerant and to make concessions. You know among the Greeks and Romans already there were angry young men like you. You are an intelligent boy or man rather and you are dissatisfied with the values of life and the state of the world. But owing to human nature it will always be like that, whatever the political regime is. Human nature will pervert anything and the ideal thing that you would like to have does not exist and cannot exist. One must make concessions accept things and try to be as happy with oneself as one can, have one's thoughts, but not be in continuous revolt because it does not help anything, except to make you, or maybe those who love you, unhappy. I also was not satisfied with things as they were when I was young, but as I understood human nature and even if I voiced my opinions, sometimes forcibly, I accepted facts and life and made the concessions. And there is no other way.
You are critical about the world Phil, but the world does not care what you think and you won't change it. So why not enjoy the life as it is and make those around you happy and see the good things in life too. One has to work for a living, it is not just given. When I was 18 and had done my examinations my father asked me what I wanted to study at university. I said to him, I did not want to study I wanted to earn my living.

I got a small job in an office. I had learned typing and as I had learned a bit of English and French at school, I got a job as an English and French correspondent at a business office. I was at the office at 7 every morning, I had one hour to work without being disturbed by the others and within one year I had worked myself up and was considered a valuable and reliable employee. I always believed I had to work for my living, I might just try to do it well because I would spend the same amount of time doing it badly.
When I went to Paris to work my father offered to send me money because I earned little. I refused because when I left home I wanted to stand on my own two feet. I was too proud. I worked hard and within one year my boss had trebled my salary without my asking for an increase.

As I said, if you have to work, you might as well do it properly for your own satisfaction. I tried in my life, never at the cost of anybody else. I have done a lot of bad things in my life because like you Phil I am sometimes possessed by a devil of a temper and contrary to my wishes I have been unpleasant and made other people unhappy. Accept life as it is, if university is abstract things are not as one would like to have them but that is human nature.

It is hard to explain to you what I think, but my dearest Phil try to learn to be tolerant and have consideration for others particularly those around you because they love you and would like to see you happy. Whatever you try to do, do it well and try to be the Phil who has immense possibilities and qualities, if he only lets those qualities come through.

I am glad that you got over Natasha. Believe me, even there I understand you. When I was 21 I loved a girl ( American ) we wrote to each other for 2 years, at least once, often twice. After two years she came back to Vienna for a visit. We wanted to marry, ( I had a job ) but of course she wanted to live in the USA. Her father was very rich. She wanted me to work for her father. I refused, I wanted to start work on my own with another firm, prove myself, earn enough money and marry her and eventually work for her father but I wanted first to prove that I could work without any body's help. I did not want her one day to say, without her father I would have been nothing. I was too proud, she did not want to wait and as much as it broke my heart, I sent her to the devil, because I valued my self respect. But I suffered very much. We all suffer when we love, but that is life. the ones who cannot suffer are like oxen, they are just without any depth. You will still meet in your life somebody and in your memories you will laugh about Natasha [True!]. We all had our love for Natashas.

I know you have so many problems. They are inherent for thinking people, but one must not let the problems get the better of one.

I wish we lived nearer and we could see each other all of you more easily. It is the great sorrow of our life. We are so alone here and feel so lonely. But again, that is how it sometimes happens and you must accept it.
I think it is a good idea to study Russian and the History of Europe, but whatever you do, try to do it well. You will see what a satisfaction you get out of it.

...
and granny also is not so strong [Wrong grandpa - she lived another 27 years]. And I cannot tell you how much she loves you as I do and how much she believes in you and your capabilities.
...

If you would read what they wrote about the world in Greek and Roman times you would think it is about today. Those problems have always existed and as long as the world exists, they will be here.

My dear Phil try to come to peace with yourself and think your thoughts but don't let them make you unhappy, or think you can change the world. Try to get some happiness out of it and try to make those around you as happy as you can. Because they all love you very much.

I am enclosing 100 Frs. It is not much, but my illness costs a lot of money. I cannot drive anymore, must by everything in Golfe Juan where it is much more expensive. But as I said, I am a great invalid and really very, very sick. Write to me again if you can and tell me whether my remarks are of any help to you and if you want some more explanations about my thinking, if I have been at all able to express my thinking in this letter.

Granny and I hug you and kiss you and love you and if by any chance my health improves, that I can help granny at home, then by summer we shall be happy to have you stay for a while with us. But quite frankly it looks now it won't be the case. , my doctor said it would be 6 months before I would be just a little bit better and I would always be an invalid. But don't let's despair, anything can happen.

Hugs and kisses and much love

Your loving

Granny and Grandpa

* * *
Grandpa died a few weeks after writing this letter.