Two Staten Island Lives

I spent this afternoon in Staten Island, visiting women who straddled both ends of the spectrum of life.

The first was my cousin, who just turned 11 days old today.  No matter how many babies I see, I still can't get over how tiny everything is about them.  Tiny nose, tiny mouth, tiny hands with tiny fingers that have little itty bitty fingernails at the ends of them.  She was sleeping for most of the time that I, my wife, and my parents were there, but every so often her eyes would blink open in a flash of brilliant blue, or her arms would stretch wide as her mouth opened into a wide, toothless yawn.

I won't lie: even though I'm fully aware of how much precious sleep and time and money it would cost me, I would love to have a baby in my life.  My wife isn't ready yet, and I completely understand: we've just gotten married and we'd like to spend some time alone together before starting a family.  Plus, for reasons financial and otherwise, we really should have more stability in our lives before introducing a child into the picture.

Looking at that baby today, I wondered what type of person she'd turn into as she grew older.  What dreams will she have?  What type of music will she listen to?  How will she get along with her parents?  Her life is still wide open, filled with endless possible permutations to come.  My parents were telling her parents stories of when I was very young.  Some of it I remembered (my memories go back to about when I was 2 1/2) and some of it I didn't.  They also talked about my younger brother, and I can remember him all the way back to the hospital nursery, where I saw him for the first time through the glass.  Now he's taller than me, and living his own life all the way out in California.  That's something my four-year-old self probably never could've fathomed while staring at the little sleeping creature in the blue hat all those years ago.

After we left my cousin's place, we headed next to a rehab center not too far away, where my 87-year-old aunt is in the process of recovering from a stroke.  We found her propped up in bed, resting her eyes at first but awakening at the approach of company.  She looked better than the last time I saw her, but still nowhere near where she had been before the stroke.  She hasn't regained the power of speech yet, although she tries to form words with her lips and vocal cords---words that are mostly undone by the fact that she still doesn't have much control over her tongue.  Even without words, she's still surprisingly alert.  I could see in her eyes the recognition of who we were and at least some of what we were saying, and also the frustration at her own inability to communicate.

I've known my aunt all my life, and spent many a day as a toddler running around her house while my mom and dad were out working.  Every Christmas Eve we went to her house for an endless stream of seafood, followed by opening presents no earlier than midnight, and getting home in the wee, blurry hours of the morning.  (There were times as a kid when I wondered whether Santa had already come while we were out)  When I got out of grad school and started my first job, I became her tenant, living in the second story of her house for a couple of years---the same rooms where my grandparents had once lived, and where my mother grew up.  She was always quick to offer her opinion, and she had a great store of wisdom to share from her life that led from her childhood as the daughter of immigrants to her acquiring her C.P.A. and eventually becoming a dean at the nearby college.  She was a local celebrity, and knew a veritable Who's Who of Staten Island's movers and shakers.  She was still threatening to take me down to the barber's to have my long hair shorn off a few weeks ago, before everything changed...

I looked at her lying there, white hair beginning to show as the results of her last salon visit grew out.  I wondered what my life would be like at her age (or my parents' life, for that matter).  I've had multiple members of my family tell me, "Don't get old," over the years, but I've never been thrilled by the prospect of the alternative, either.  There will still be generations to come, though, and we all need to make room for them sooner or later.  I only hope that I can live on in their memories...and that those memories, on the whole, are pleasant.