NOT SENT

Dear Nathaniel,

Thank you for taking the time this afternoon to give me so candid an 
account of how you feel about the person that I am. I welcome criticism. 
I am never offended, and I try to learn. However in the present situation 
I am helpless since especially at age 88, I cannot change myself. 
The older I get, the more I find it painful and difficult to be someone 
who is disliked, ignored and treated with contempt, by implication if not 
explicitly.

I long for the days after Grandmas death, from October 14, 2015 to 
January 2, 2018, when I lived alone in this house and no family member 
came to talk to me, obnoxious as I am, in part surely, as you yourself 
explained to me, because I had disgraced the family name (which incidentally 
it got from me) by litigating for 11 years with the town of Nantucket. 
I think back with happiness and gratitude to those two years and two months
when I could walk through this house without encountering someone who 
dislikes me for being the person I am.

You were on the right track in March when you asked Klemens for a subsidy
to make it possible for you to rent (or buy) premises independent of me
where you and your dog could lead the good life. In retrospect it was
obviously a mistake for us to dissuade you from taking that avenue.
But it's not too late to return to that direction. Fortunately there's 
plenty of money in the family, and when you add up the costs of room 
and board for Benjamin at Dartmouth College, Bryn Mawr College and Columbia 
Medical School, the costs of room and board for Leah at Yale, and the costs 
of room and board at Yale for yourself, where all this education was 
available in Cambridge and Boston without costs for room and board, 
you will have an estimate of how many thousands of dollars the family 
has spent to make it unnecessary for family members to live together 
under the same roof. There's nothing wrong with that; it's no shame, 
and it's natural.

I ask you to do nothing while Sabine is living here. I want under no
circumstances that Sabine should be embarrassed in any way. I understood you 
to say that she was here for the month of August, and I assume that she will
leave in the first half of September. After Sabine has left, please start
looking for a place to stay, other that 174 School Street, a place which you 
do not have to share with someone such as myself whom you cannot bring 
yourself to like. If you wish, I can help you look for suitable real estate. 
Next, prepare a budget with your anticipated earnings and anticipated 
expenses including rent, and the anticipated subsidy required to make 
ends meet. For the budget, you will need Klemens' help, since I have no 
knowledge at all a) of your assets and earnings, b) of Laura's assets and 
earnings, c) of Klemens assets and earnings, all of which are required to 
calculate a feasible subsidy. Klemens has all details the assets which 
belong to me. They are available as needed. 

Please understand clearly, and don't forget: 

a) that I do not, under any circumstances, want to be an agency that
separates you from your dog,

b) that I do want to make it possible for you to leave 174 School Street
if and when you deem leaving 174 School Street to be in your own best 
interest,

c) that although I would very much like to live here by myself, I am not 
asking you to leave 174 School Street.

Jochen