Esther Adams to Rebecca West, 1969-12-14

"My dear Rebecca, I think of you often. I wonder how you are, what you are doing, how you look, whom you see and everything. You won't believe this concern now that so long a time has gone by since I received the notice of your new address. At that time I was going to write at once and hoped to have news of you, but shortly after that I had a great grief in the death of my youngest son, Jack. He was thirty six, had a wife and two small boys, and committed suicide. You have had grief with a son, and a harder one to bear, for mine has been one of those awful 'if only' affairs, and a constant contemplation of the suffering that he must have gone through. He couldn't seem to hold a job or to make money in a way that would keep his family decently. I supported him as best I could thinking always that it was temporary, but it was as my oldest son said, 'he felt he was worth more dead than alive' and it was true..."