Correspondence Corrosion
The first weekend of April my parents came from Snowland to visit. We played board games, we went dancing, and generally had a good time.
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Afterward, Hibiscus said to me, "It felt like family." A tear fell from his left eye as I curled up beside him on my bed. "It used to feel like that with my parents. I don't know what's changed."
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The weekend after my parents visited, Hibiscus received a letter from his parents via snail-mail. The hand-written letter read:
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Dear Hibiscus,
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Thank you for the invitation to your and Nuria's (and Paladin's?) commitment ceremony. As you already know, we won't be joining you, for various reasons.
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You are our only child and we love you with all our heart and want the best for you. We hope that this new lifestyle you are embarking on is right for you and will make you happy. We hope you realize that all this is totally alien to us, but we will look inward for compromise and acceptance but we do love you.
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As you know we have several dear friends and friends whose children are gay or lesbian, which is also different from our life experience, but we feel comfortable with that because commit to only one other person they are love with. What are you committing to?
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Nuria and Paladin. Who are all these people? And how can they live their lifestyle without someone who is willing to house and feed them? I bet your food bill has gone up dramatically since the clan arrived and with all the exotic fruit. No more "buy local." How you have changed your tune.
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We think your invitation to the Silverstag Eco Hamlet worked so hard on "honesty" that it reads selfish, rude and alienating, not only to your Silverstag Eco Hamlet neighbors and friends, but to others with small children. No children allowed unless they act like grown ups? I honestly hope this was not your idea. If it is, I don't recognize my son, who loved to play with his cousins.
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Also, no food? Even Otter and Polecat on their meager budget provided food and drinks and the kids had fun with each other and the pinata especially. You are serving water with herbs and citrus? No children? It sounds more like a funeral than a wedding.
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Picture taking? Why so much effort on getting people to dress "your" way when the pictures can't be made public?
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Nuria is right, they would be compromising, and you could lose your job and your ability to support other people. It could also worsen the already dubious relations of Silverstag Eco Hamlet with the town.
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We also hope you won't be setting up new financial commitments or re-doing your will.
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With the new developments you must understand that we are less eager to move to Silverstag. When we "committed" (I now hate the word) to build a house at Silverstag it was because of our love for you. You sounded depressed that Silverstag might not survive. You had run out of capital, and bankruptcy or selling it to a developer seemed the only choices.
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So we thought by building our house it would help rescue the dismal financial situation. I guess, we did help some. Uncle ____ helped with the water supply, ____ gave $10,000 - for the bridge, we built our house and lent Silverstag $70,000, for which we will not be repaid until after we are dead.
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So much for love and (our) stupidity!
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Unfortunately the present situation stinks. We'd love to come up and work on the house, do landscaping, build a patio, etc. But out house is rented out and yours is filled to capacity.
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Also, I like to cook and I don't like "raw" toast in the morning. Hopefully the new guest quarters will be finished soon so we will have a place to stay.
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With a heavy heart but lots of love,
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Mom and Dad.
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Click here to read what happened next: Correspondance Corruption.