XII. April 17
Dear Dad,
Happy Birthday to me, I guess. We're spending my birthday and the Easter hols on vacation in Ois, Greece. I'm afraid I'm not much of a social butterfly, since I'm watching over Gran. She seems to be enjoying herself very much, but is still rather disoriented. I've brought along a few books to read about her Alzheimer's while I'm on vacation. Surprisingly, even Aunt Hermione told me to put the books down. Traitor.
Honestly, though, I'd just rather not think of "celebrating" my birthday because it means I'm a year older and a year closer to adulthood and responsibilities and jobs and uni, and I panic thinking about it. Like what am I supposed to do?! I know that it was expected that I would stay in the wizarding world, maybe pursue a career as a Healer, or in the Ministry. But now… I don't even know anymore. Would I be happy as a Healer in the wizarding world? Could I even be happy knowing that there's a disease called Alzheimer's in the Muggle world that probably affects millions of wizards and is being misdiagnosed? I know there are people out there who are suffering as we are – and many of them probably haven't even been able to get a fraction of the care that Gran has. And I know I'm lucky, really, to have been able to get Gran diagnosed and in a clinical trial. But at the same time, I can't bear to think of the last member of my family dying tragically too. Is misfortune the only hand fate has dealt me? It's NOT FAIR. I hate it, I really do.
And I know Uncle Harry's been through a lot of that himself, and he's stronger for it, but he has his family now and he's happy. Obviously it looks better in retrospect, but I'm in the present. I can't imagine how I'll manage to survive until a future where I can look back and say that I survived and that it wasn't too bad.
Love always, Teddy