Grant's Childhood Is the Real Tragedy

While watching television comments and editorials about Gina Grant, I have been waiting for someone to mention something about the problems and heartbreaks experienced by people who live with alcoholics.

I have this experience. My mother was an alcoholic, a woman who when not drinking was kind and loving, but could be unpredictable and abusive when drinking.

If one has not lived with an alcoholic, I am not sure it is possible to understand what it is like to be a child growing up with an alcoholic parent. I believe it must be exquisitely painful when that parent is the mother. Like Gina, my own father died when I was 10 or 11. Very often there is no one to turn to for help.

When one is 14 there are problems experienced by many teenagers. But, the child of an alcoholic can add feelings of abandonment, hurt, fear, anger, shame, humiliation and despair, to name a few.

I am now an over-60 grandmother. Based on my past, perhaps one positive thing I can do is to try to help you understand some of the misfortunes of Gina Grant at age 14.

Please consider not only that Gina has committed the ultimate tragedy but also that tragedy was most likely inflicted on her for many years. I am sorry that Harvard has rejected the admission of this brilliant, young woman. I hope she is able to continue her education else where. Betty J. Coate

This letter was also addressed to Dean of Admissions Williams R. Fitzsimmons '67.