1983 Cynthia's letter to Roberta -Oct.24

After learning of her father's engagement to Roberta, Sid's daughter, Cynthia, writes a letter.  Transcription follows.

Suffolk [England]
24 October, 1983

Dear Roberta,

Just a card to say hello and to tell you again how happy I am for you and my Dad.  For both of you the idea of marriage must hold lots of challenges and excitement.  Having been married for 14 years I can attest to both – and also to the difficulties of marriage.  But where love & good will abound – nothing is impossible – and so I look with hope and optimism toward this new relationship.

Although I am very happy for you, I have to confess to being doubly or even triply happy for my Dad.  Sid is a truly wonderful person but life has been very hard on him.  He responded heroically to the many disappointments and difficulties he's faced but they have all taken their toll.  And somewhere – in the fairly recent past – he got off on the wrong track and it has seemed to be a wide way – leading to sorrow.   But I see in his love for you a tremendous desire to shake his life up and turn himself back to a path of meaning and fulfillment.  And this is tremendous.  Such awareness and opportunities come rarely in life.  That it has come to my father was my deepest and most earnest prayer for him.

You will both continue to be the object of my prayers – but I believe firmly in the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of Love and I know your lives will be blessed.

[the letter continues but the remainder has been removed from this copy.]