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Correspondence

I was deeply moved by Erin McReynolds’s essay “And These Too Are Defensive Wounds” [September 2024], in which she struggles to process her mother’s murder and her evolving feelings about the murderer. My sister, Anne, was murdered in 1974. The crime was never solved. On the one hand, I’m grateful that my parents and I were spared the ordeal of a trial, but I will always wonder if Anne had a connection to her killer and if there was a reason he chose her as his victim. It took me years to be able to talk about my sister’s death and to grieve openly. I admire the courage it must have taken for McReynolds to dive into the courtroom transcripts and to share her inner journey. I thank her for standing up for her mother and for all victims of violence.

Jean Berolzheimer
Vashon, Washington

Correspondence

Maureen Beitler’s photo essay “To the Bone” [July 2024] is brilliant. Her images put me in mind of the masters whose photographs were published between 1940 and 1990, but Beitler’s work also has a contemporary style and approach that instantly transports me into the scene.

Steven Potashner
West Hartford, Connecticut

Correspondence

“Charity” left me in awe. The power of human connection, even in short encounters with strangers, should not be underestimated. I can always count on The Sun to shine light on the private corners of the human experience.

Steve Boyer
Salt Lake City, Utah

Correspondence

Regarding the look on the softball pitcher’s face on the cover of your June 2024 issue: if I were at bat, I wouldn’t crowd the plate!

Chris Walter
Pembroke, Virginia

Correspondence

What a beautiful surprise to see Doug Sylver’s name in your January 2024 Correspondence. Mr. Sylver, as he’ll always be known to me, was my high-school language-arts teacher in Seattle, Washington, in the early 2000s. After I saw his name, I contacted him for the first time in many years. It turns out that not only do we share a love of The Sun, we both played in punk bands in our twenties and worked through difficult divorces in our thirties. And, like Mr. Sylver—really, because of him—I am a language-arts teacher at a public school.

Dana Jewell
Bellingham, Washington

Correspondence

I am a therapist who is dedicated to doing therapy differently. To me that means being candid about my life and the roller-coaster ride existence is for all of us. I was married to a Presbyterian minister, then met the love of my life: a woman. Donna died five years ago, and now, at sixty-one years old, I’m embracing another unexpected kind of love.

I lead a weekly group for women, and I’ll be sharing Stacy Boe Miller’s essay “Sex in the In-Between” [May 2024] with them. I’m in awe of the author’s courage to be real. I can’t wait for the women in my group to be as stunned as I was.

Natalie Isaac
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Correspondence

 Jared Harél’s poem “Last Bath” [January 2024] triggered memories of when my own children were young. It captures that bittersweet feeling parents experience as their kids grow up.

The poet’s description of the word privacy as “delicate” and like “new fruit” on his daughter’s lips felt like an arrow to my heart. How wonderful that the parent in the poem doesn’t laugh but chooses to respect his young daughter’s request for privacy.

Doris Collins
South Hamilton, Massachusetts

Correspondence

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