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Dear Alexander Mr Hamilton,
most sane people would tell me I am writing this letter in vain, which is why this will never see the light of the day. My family's name has suffered enough disrespect in the past years, and there's no need for people to know that young Theodosia is well emotionally unstable just like her old man. I understand why people would assume that I am out of my mind because I am literally sitting here, dedicating a letter to a person who won't ever read it, to a person who won't ever open their eyes again.
To be entirely honest, sir, I don't miss your presence. I'm not writing this letter to make me feel less guilty for not liking you when you were alive. Thomas Jefferson's doing it, all your former enemies are doing it and so is my father. Suddenly they all say how you were actually a great person, taking a bullet in the side like a dumb boy who doesn't know how to settle his problems with diplomacy was your undoing, and now it's making people remember only the good. See, that's where I disagree. No matter how much time you spend six feet underground, no matter how long you rot, I will remember what a despicable human being you actually were.
Anyhow, I find that the two of us surprisingly have multiple things in common. So proud of your heritage, were you? That's what my father told me. Born with nothing, come from nowhere, but you rose out of the ashes and climbed up all the way to the top. Most people don't realize it, but I'm a bastard too. They don't use this term for girls whose father had a high political position? Believe me or not, they do. My parents weren't married, my mother is back with her husband, and I'm an unlawful child. With time, I grew used to the insults from the other kids. I grew used to the condemnatory glances from our neighbors. In this world, I can't wear my name on my sleeve without people judging me, as if it weren't already hard enough for me as a half-british female, and that's your fault. Blaming you won't improve my situation, but I wish you would have known about the impact you had on people's lives, though you never thought about them once.
Back to our similarities, there is another thing you never once even noticed. Both you and I were very fond of your firstborn son, Philip. In different manners, I do hope, but he meant the world to me and you never cared. You thought you and Eliza were the only ones who lost a piece of their heart the day you gave your son the gun to win his first duel? His first duel was also his last, and you never knew how many nights I spent crying myself to sleep.
My father was there, my father held me while I sobbed, and now I am there to return the favor. Your death devastated him, and you don't believe that because he was the one to shoot you? He hasn't been the same since. It took me three days to convince him to eat again. He hasn't left the house in nearly a month, and I run the entire household. Wouldn't you expect passers-by to halt and offer their help, or at least their condolences? They did, just not to us. Your children, your wife and her sister, they have doctors at their side and neighbors baking cakes for them all day long. I went to express my sorrow for their loss, too. Eliza recognized me. She offered me a seat and hugged me for four minutes instead of sending me away because I'm the child of your shooter. Nothing you could have done in your life would have made you deserve her. Your daughter Angelica asked me if I would come over to play regularly from now on again. I used to do that, they remember. You never cared. And I answered no. There are many things I have to take care of at the moment, I told her, I'm sorry. Then I left to find my father at home, in a fetal position, reciting one of your countless works.
Back to Philip, though, we grew up together. I didn't have friends because of my heritage, but that never mattered to him. Maybe you never noticed, but Eliza came over with him a lot, simply because I didn't have a mother and she was a genuinely nice person. So your son and I were close since the beginning, he liked to braid my hair and I knew all the spots where he was ticklish. You wouldn't see either of us cross the street alone, every time one of us was in trouble you could bet your life that the other was involved just as much. And with everyone whispering, because such a tight friendship was untypical for our age or time, I thought I was supposed to be in love with him because apparently that is the only way a girl like me can like a boy like him. Of course we never talked about that, and I was so confused when he started being with other girls.
Then you and my father had more and more disagreements, and you probably don't remember that time you told me to leave because you don't want a Burr infesting your children's thoughts. I didn't come over from then on, and Philip stopped coming over because he was probably more interested in those other girls who deified him. Why didn't I ever pick up the courage to tell him how I felt? That's only one of the questions I asked myself many times. Years of people showing me how worthless I was, I suppose I accepted that and thought he could never feel the same way about me. Or perhaps I was just to shy to even think about the possibilities too much. The only people who ever appreciated me were my father, and Phil. We could have been something great together, if I'd just picked up the courage and if you hadn't seperated us.
In all of this, I don't blame him. Call me blind, call me just another stupid girl with a crush on your son. I've been called worse. But no, disrupting our relationship like that wasn't enough. Through what you did, he died. Died, long before his time, before I told him how much he really meant to me. He died for a reason as simple as pride, and we never even said goodbye. Can you imagine how I felt? Can you imagine how I reacted when some random person on the street told me what happened? Philip Hamilton, you say? No he just died in a duel, didn't you know? Can you imagine how I had to walk home with a straight face because there was already enough gossip without me having a panic attack in public? Can you imagine my father holding my hand, stroking the skin where my nails had dug into my palms so hard that it bled?
He brewed me tea when I wouldn't get out of bed, dried my tears when there were none left. How can you call that person a villain? How can you call him selfish? After all I know, you were the one working day and night to archieve their goals at any sacrifice. Of course my father tried to succeed in his life as well, with different strategies as yours, but that doesn't make him wrong. You call yourself brilliant and witty, then how was it so hard for you to accept that yours isn't the only way possible? In the end, both of you became great men of major political importance. So why couldn't you coexist? Why wasn't it enough that both of you had come so far?
I cannot ask my father that question. That's why I am drafting this letter. Simply to get all this off my mind. I know I cannot bury it or push it away, and I know I'll never be of importance in your narrative in the history. My father's barely talking, he tries to drink a lot and I try to stop him. A lot of times, he confuses me with my mother and he cries out of joy. You came back, you came for me. I gave up thinking you would, oh my god, you're so beautiful. You came back.
Truth is, I don't think you ever once bothered thinking about the problems anyone else was going through. Did you think about your wife when you published the Reynolds Pamphlet? Did you think about my father ever time you said something quick-witted to his face? Did you think about your children when you met for a duel in New Jersey? The answer is no, to each one, and that's the reason I will forever remember you as the egoistic reckless man you really were. I don't want your pity. I don't need your sorries. I wish there would be somebody I could talk to the way I did to your son before puberty hit, and I know that's not going to happen.
This letter will burn and my story won't be remembered.
Kind regards,
Theodosia Burr