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Dear Eric: In high school I went with Bev for a time and I deeply loved her. Bev was outstandingly beautiful; she had a wonderful personality and was liked by all. She was two years younger than me. As young love would have it: she was deeply in love with me also. She was my life.

I felt that she was way too good for me and I broke off contact with her, seemingly breaking her heart, she said.

The day before I went into the army (Vietnam War), she contacted me and wanted me to write to her. I told her it would not be a good idea because I was going to be gone for two years and she would be in college. But she insisted.

I did send her two letters giving her my address, but she never contacted me. The letters were addressed to her at our hometown address. I was irritated that I did not get a return letter for her college address.

I always wondered if her parents did not like me and threw the letters away. I would like to contact her to find out if she received the letters. Do you have any suggestions?

– Old G.I.

Dear G.I.: A similar situation befell the main characters of the Rachel McAdams/Ryan Gosling movie “The Notebook”. The good news for them is that her parents had been hiding the letters, and they discovered it in time. Life is never as neat as a movie, but sometimes we can get the closure we seek to end the story, as it were.

To that end, reach out and ask. I’m presuming that your curiosity is platonic. That is, you’re not expecting this conversation to rekindle your past relationship. Anything is possible, of course, but it’s safer for both of you if you go in simply seeking an answer to your question. This also shows respect for the likelihood that she has had other relationships and could be in one right now.

It’s best to do this on a public social media platform, like Facebook, if she has a profile. This keeps a boundary and allows her an out if she doesn’t want to engage. Short of that, you may want to contact a mutual friend to serve as a go-between. The friend can ask her if she’s interested in connecting and then you can go from there.

Dear Eric: When my family's children were young, they mostly traveled the 200 miles to visit for holidays. Now the children are older, and have jobs, friends et cetera. The parents now seem to expect us to do the traveling. We are in our late 70s, and this is getting harder to do.

The change in beds, food, schedules and houses put a toll on our physical body that takes days to recover. This seems hard for them to understand as they haven’t reached this stage.

We now are faced with missing holidays with them to comply with their demands. I have faced the possibility of loneliness that older people seemingly endure nowadays. Is there an answer to this problem or must I endure pain and trauma to see family in older age?

– Sad, Lonely and In Pain

Dear Sad: As I suspect you already know, you’re not alone in facing this issue. Many families experience a disconnect between generations around travel and making special times, especially as families spread farther apart geographically. Often, everyone is trying their best but finding that there are simply too many competing and seemingly conflicting needs.

However, there are solutions. Talk to your younger family members about what you’re experiencing and what you need. Try to do it in advance so that the conversation can be heard as a request to plan, rather than a demand for course correction. “Travel is getting harder for us, and it takes a toll on us that we didn’t feel when we were younger. We really want to see you and be included. Can we work together to find a solution that works for everyone?”

Acknowledging that you understand where another person is coming from goes a long way. Hopefully, your family members will also come to understand where you’re coming from, as well. Sometimes family can feel like a closed-off room that you’re either inside of or outside of. But a family is a system that is constantly in flux. So, it’s less a room, than it is an open courtyard. It sometimes takes some prodding or conversation to remind family members of that. We are constantly making and remaking our families and our gatherings. Children grow up, adults age, people come in and exit for various reasons. Our desire to see each other can remain the same but the means of doing so have to be flexible.

(Send questions to R. Eric Thomas at eric@askingeric.com or P.O. Box 22474, Philadelphia, PA 19110. Follow him on Instagram and sign up for his weekly newsletter at rericthomas.com.)

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