@crossingthethreshold That's such a treasure! My family tends to want to erase the past--at least it seems that way as far as I'm concerned. Too many secrets, which means it's the silences that have largely been passed down to me. It's not precisely why I became a poet, but making poems allows me to turn those silences into meaningful spaces, if that makes sense. I wish I had the letters I sent to my mother over the years, or her letters, or my grandparents'. @lukemperez is right. There's a book there.