In 1941, I received a telephone call from the White House.  Aunt Eleanor said, "I'm sorry to have to tell you, dear, that your father is very ill.  He's in the hospital in Bethesda.  He has cirrhosis of the liver and is not expected to live many more days."
    I was speechless as se continued, "He's out of his head much of the time, but I wanted to tell you and leave it up to you whether or not you want to come to see him.  It's quite possible he won't recognize you, but I feel the decision should be yours."
    My father left my family when I was three, and I didn't see him again for twelve years, when Aunt Eleanor arranged for me to meet him.  I have always been grateful to her for that.  The next six years turned my father into a living person for me and laid to rest the fantasy I might have harbored otherwise. 
    On the train to Bethesda, I thought about my father and about his and my aunt's father, my grandfather.  Aunt Eleanor's father had died when she was nine and therefore too young to make considered judgments.  In her overwhelming childhood grief, she felt the loss of the one person who sincerely loved her.  She focused on remembering everything her father had said to her and vowed never to forget one word of his admonitions or one whisper of the secret messages they shared when she sat on his lap.
    One of the admonitions was to take care of her little brother Hall, my father.  My aunt did her best to fulfill her father's request.  After they were orphaned, she tried to be both mother and father to him.  When she was grown and married to Franklin, my father lived with them until he married.  Even after he was married, she continued to provide a haven for him.  She watched over both his marriages, and, as he gradually disintegrated into alcohol addiction, she always provided some kind of housing for him and an opportunity to work at something. 
    Most recently, he had finished a book with the help of a ghostwriter.  The Odyssey of an American Family is a history of the first Roosevelts in America.  They were Dutch who sailed to New Amsterdam (now New York).  He gave me a copy of the book, and on the flyleaf he wrote, "To a most darling lady, my daughter."
    Our times together had been sad celebrations for me: a birthday party, an evening at a nightclub, a Thanksgiving Day with his friends; never was it just him and me.  It was as if he couldn't let anyone see him quietly.  And alcohol was his protection.
    At the hospital, I found Aunt Eleanor at his bedside.  She left the room so that I could be alone with him, restless and half-conscious as he was.  But he did recognize me and held my hand.  I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness for a brilliant life lost to emotional instability.  I also felt sad for Aunt Eleanor, who was watching a replay of the death of her father.  He also had dies from cirrhosis of the liver due to abuse of alcohol.
    Hall died next week, and his casket lay in the lovely east room of the White House until it went on its final journey to Tivoli, New York, to be placed in the Hall vault in the graveyard of the Tivoli Episcopal Church.
    After the service at the White House, Aunt Eleanor, Tommy, and I were driven back to Val-Kill Cottage in the White House limousine with an escort of two motorcycle policemen.  Occasionally, I feared for the lives of pedestrians or innocent animals along our route.  I think motorcycle policemen must be the modern equivalent of the cavalry.  They enjoyed charging ahead.
    Val-Kill Cottage was quiet.  Only Marge, the coo, came to greet us and then disappeared to cook our dinner.  Tommy and I sat in her cozy living room beside a friendly fire, enjoying a cocktail before dinner, while Aunt Eleanor went upstairs to bathe and change.  Aunt Eleanor never allowed herself to relax with a glass of wine, no doubt because of its role in the death of her father and now of her brother.
    After dinner, we were back in Tommy's living room for coffee when Aunt Eleanor left us to go up to her bedroom.  She returned with a shoebox full of her brother's letters, sat on the couch by the fire and took her glasses out of her purse.  One by one, she took his letters out of the box and read them through quietly to herself.
    Tommy and I sat in silence watching her, until Tommy finally said, "Mrs. Roosevelt, you must not be too hard on yourself."
    Only then did Aunt Eleanor look up, her eyes glistening.  "I'm trying to find where I failed him, Tommy."
    She went through several more letters before Tommy spoke again.  "You must not blame yourself, Mrs. Roosevelt.  You did everything in your power to help him.  The truth is that he couldn't be helped because he had lost the power to help himself.  You must go on now and help other people.  There is a world of people out there who need your help.  Don't be diverted by a personal sadness when there is so much that needs to be done that only you can do."
    An era ended for my aunt that night.  Her impossible struggle to help her brother had failed.  But she would carry on now, more than ever inspired by the desire to help people everywhere. 
    The golden light of the fire softened the shadows on Aunt Eleanor's face as she began to go through the letters a second time.  She read them one by one, and one by one she gently let them drift into the fire.