Adjustments
Nana
Dear Guillianna and Elijah –
Always a good idea to hug longer – love stronger … we are wishing you both lots of hugs and love. Today I was preparing cards to send for Valentine’s Day and my heart broke yet again. Knowing that a card is not welcome in your mailbox right now, I could not help but remember lunch love and cards of the past promises to you both that we would always be there for you and thinking how you must be wondering where we went. We are unsure what has been said or how we went from two children who loved Nana and Poppy so deeply, to not hearing from you – and no matter how many different ways we envision this – it always comes back with images of your hearts being broken – To know you cannot show the love for your family, people you’ve known and been with all your lives, or to imagine you left to wonder why no one was able to protect you from this sense of loss? Why nana and Poppy didn’t call or didn’t see you ? No matter which possible scenario you could possibly have been left to imagine or have been told , – the outcome in these thoughts all points to sorrow. This is so sad. To know the trust you placed in your Nana and Poppy, the love you have for us both , the inability to show it, or if it has been altered, the result is the same. A broken heart of a small child.
These letters are to say to you both – you’re loved, to hope and lead you in a direction to not give into distrust or allow yourself to ever think anything sad of your years with us, of our love, and to not fall victim to doubt and distrust . The memories of life in the Mitten are amazing, full of love and happiness beyond words. Somehow there is innuendo over these past months that suggests people you have only ever loved are either somehow not worthy of your love, or that people you have trusted for years have disappeared making them untrustworthy … we have not disappeared… and we are not bad, or unworthy of a relationship with our grandchildren. We are trustworthy and no matter where life leads you , you have not been forgotten and the bond a grandparent has with a grandchild is not worthless. The bond however between you and your parents is very important and the need for respect and love in your home, continued growth and dedication to hard work at school and at play , is the priority. These letters will help you see the past years for what they truly were, knowing this one day allows the memories to help your tomorrows. Recognition of your youth as good and full of people who only ever wanted you to have every opportunity is key – it’s something we have diligently tried to instill upon our own children , yet the circumstances did not allow for them to see and hear about the love of the family they missed. There was no way for letters of love from those they never saw again . The issues over trust and believing in love of family, being able to attach was and is a constant struggle for some. Knowing these love letters exist when you’re grown, may help you both so that you can live in peace knowing that we understand. It is true you should not ever had been put in a situation where in you felt you had to choose between a sort of approval of your parents, pleasing them or connected to them and showing the love you felt for your grandparents. You can always know that you are not responsible for the broken hearts ? you’ve experienced. You can hopefully understand that mom and dad love you and have only wanted to live life on their own terms. What ever those terms may be. It is not your role to make others feel the love you have experienced with us, or help them to understand the depth of relationships you’ve had, that they may not see or understand themselves. It is not your task and it is not the place that we ever imagined you to have been in yet here we are .
Hoping for people to love and to trust has been a life long objective for Poppy and I. Preventing anyone else from ever feeling some of what we have witnessed in our own family, where children lost people they loved and seemingly lost the ability to trust others when so very young, has been our life’s journey. We have not been entirely successful, it’s clear, but our lack of success doesn’t obliterate the motivation the dedication and the truth behind every single day of our lives for decades. It simply means our efforts were not enough to undo the effects of the trauma for some, yet. We believe in the value of relationships the importance of grandparents, of parents, of siblings, extended family – in this life. We believe some of our family have not been able to develop the foresight to see the value of those who have helped enrich their lives. To live in gratitude for what you have is a message we’ve been unable to convey to those of our family who possibly live in distrust, or seemingly cannot attach or grasp this concept, and always in the past tend to look at what they didn’t have. Nothing could be more sad to witness than when a person you love – who has lost the ability to connect and love, lost the ability to recognize all of the people in life who have shared their hearts and lives, valued and welcomed every opportunity to help – For us the we go forward with hope that it will eventually be accepted, and reciprocatedamong all our remaining children. We will always hope that the feelings we have as parents and grandparents, the feelings that those who have always supported our family have, will one day resonate and flourish in the hearts of all of our living children and that they will one day know the depth of our love and commitment to them and the chance at life.
We want your days to be full of happiness. To grow in love and to trust. To believe in family and know that parents do everything they can to create every opportunity for their children. What you two do with those opportunities, how you treat others and the life choices you make when you are grown iare as individual and unique as each person is. Once grown a child becomes an adult that gets to choose what they want from life, who they share it with and what they hope for in the future. We will always the hope that the journey of our children and grandchildren will begin and end with the joy, the warmth, the foundation a child has been given through the years. We believe that the foundational values we glean from our childhood will carry us through the lessons of life. While some of our adult children have suffered greatly from abandonment loss displacement kinds of memories in Romania, or exhibit through childhood the inability to trust, there is always hope that the memories will one day expand to encompass the joy, warmth, and all the good in their lives as our children as grandchildren of our parents as siblings to each other. To break through and experience true gratitude for each other and those who love them. The awareness that DNA ? may determine some characteristics and also realize things like character, integrity, values and all the other important things parents bring to children are not linked to DNA .
These letters of love – have evolved over ten years and the message is basically the same. These are documentation, a testimony of sorts, to the memories here in the Mitten. Nothing can change the truth No matter how much distance, where the road leads, the hope is that the foundational memories you have had from your parents over the past year and into the future , combined with the memories in these love letters , the glimpse into the time spent and smiles that adorned your faces – will allow you to know unequivocally all those who love you, that you were very happy and well cared for – and these memories are and will be protected and preserved in an attempt to prevent the kind of distrust and attachment issues that could emerge. At the very least they will serve as perspective, a journal written with more love than words could ever do justice to. Nana is not a journalist, not an expert . She is not a website designer. The words may not be professionally written, the letter will be full of grammar and typographical errors, but they are opinions and they are sincere. Every day Poppy and I hope to hear from Mom, that you’ll be visiting, or we will be invited to see you. Every day we hope you are well on your way to new adventures and happiness. And every day we wonder if you are dancing and singing and playing Baseball soccer or cheering – having friends who’s grandparents are there on the sidelines and thinking we have forgotten. We have not. Every day I have been writing to ensure you would one day see that not a day goes by where we have not been waiting for the phone call. Last we spoke – on FaceTime – mom was asked to call Poppy and said that it was bedtime but that you could call the next day. No call. Nothing. The way this has all unfolded is complex and evolved into something we don’t recognize or understand at all. These pages- this site these love letters, they are all we have to offer you. No Valentines Day cards were allowed to be sent to you – as I prepare to send the other grandchildren theirs the void is so great and so sorrowful . No Christmas gifts. No birthday gifts. No phone calls, no visits – detachment from everything and everyone you both have known for your entire lives – and all we can do, Poppy and I, is adjust. To do so – has not been very easy. When we think of you both – little and strong, resilient and so smart we do as you two likely do. We are responsible, we work hard, we give our best, we are kind, we are respectful, and we focus on what we do have that is good. After all to be healthy to have our parents healthy, we are lucky in many ways. And yes nothing erases the void. We are forced to adjust as are you. We will hope, journal our love, preserve your memories and keep believing in the chance that there will be resolve – and until then we are left to adjust to the circumstances.
We will hug those near us longer and send to you no matter how far virtual hugs and hope that you can feel them in reading the written word, love deeper and treasure beyond words (be grateful) for the many smiles the memories of yesterday’s and the hope in each new day that comes.
We love you ? to the moon and back
forever and for always
XOXOXOXOXOXO
❤️Nana and Poppy ❤️?