Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. "etwas Besonderes" means
"something special." I've often thought that my father's
"detention" in Buchenwald, the forced emigration, the
difficult summer in New York City, working as a domestic,
the loss of most of our household possessions, discovered
on October 13, 1939, and the relocation to Virginia the
following day, that all of this in combination, broke my
mother's spirit. Our life in Virginia was altogether
different, miserable compared with the life I remembered
from Germany.  

Then again I wonder, whether it was a change in my personality,
my experiences in Chappaqua and Canaan that summer, and my
growing up, that stripped me of the rose-colored glasses of
childhood. In any event, from the time we arrived in Konnarock
on October 15, 1939 until my mothers' death on January 3, 1990,
I felt progressively the need to take care of my parents, to
make their life in Virginia more satisfying, indeed to make it
possible at all.

All this must be considered in the perspective that _all_
families have problems of one sort or another, and when I
try to look objectively at my family, - my parents, my sister,
Margaret, Klemens and myself, - I conclude that we have been
much more fortunate than most, and have no reason at all to
complain.

I'm pleased that you're getting better from your injuries.
Keep up the improvement, and give my best to Ned.

Jochen