March 5, 2022

Dear Donald,

Thank you very much for your letter.  In the course of the many years that I practiced medicine, when there were many decisions to be made, both by my patients and by myself, I convinced myself that often it was wisest not to try to make an hypothetical decision as to what should be done at some future time, "if and when", but to wait and to defer the decision until all relevant circumstances were known, until "all cards were on the table", when it often turned out that issues had evaporated and that there was nothing left to decide. In this context, I will decide whether to proceed with the translation when and if Dr. Busch gives me assurances of his intention to publish the English version.

My mother came from a family of poor peasants in Thüringen, that same landscape in which your mother grew up, who owned only a single emaciated horse, whom they called Ule, and for whom they had barely enough hay to last through the dark cold winter. Then, when despondent about the present, they began to make plans about all that they would do in April, May or June, when spring had finally established itself, the oldest, perhaps the grandfather who understood best the ravages of time, would warn his children: "Wer weiß wo Ule ist, when Graß wächst." (Who knows where Ule will be, when the grass is growing.)

Ule's situation then, reminds me of my circumstances now.  Ule, that's me. I can no longer climb stairs. I can't even stand without clutching my walker with both hands. Yesterday, I read a letter which my father wrote to my mother 95 years ago, on January 7, 1927, when he was courting her, in which he described visits first to Hagen and to the family of Sigmund Hesse, the husband of Johanna Rosenthal, who had died of cancer seven years previously.  The next day my father went on to Annen to visit other members of his mother's family. He wrote to his fiancee that the quality of life of both his aunt Johanna and his mother Elfriede had had been substantially enhanced by the characters of their husbands, and that he, my father, felt affinity only for his uncles Max Meyer and Sigmund Hesse because they were the educated members of his family. This morning when upon waking, I couldn't remember the names of any of my Rosenthal relatives, I realized how far my mind had gone down-hill.

Best wishes to Jan and to yourself for the spring and for the future beyond. Jochen