Remembering

My family and the unconventional way I grew up has always been extremely important to me. I spent most of my childhood in Mamaroneck, N.Y., a suburban enclave that’s about 40 minutes north of Manhattan. I lived in the house my mom and her brothers grew up in with my mom, grandma and grandpa. Mom was working in the city and going to school at Pace to get her MBA at night. Those years, in my mind, were the best years anyone ever spent, anywhere. I reach for those memories often.

Mamaroneck was founded in the 1700s and is somewhat loyal (in theory, at least) to its Native American heritage. It’s heavily populated by upper middle class Italian-Americans and lower middle class Puerto Rican-Americans. It’s a historic town with a harbor, beautiful old buildings and crumbling cemeteries. We lived in a house that was built in 1920, the year my grandma was born. She died when I was 19.

Her passing was the first time anyone in my family had really experienced death. She was the brick and mortar of our family’s existence, and we’ve sort of crumbled since then. Since my mom was working or going to school for most of the time I spent living at 406 Soundview Ave., I was extremely close with my grandma and grandpa. They were what I knew. The three of us had a world together.

We nearly lost my grandpa to pneumonia shortly after my grandma passed. When he was sick and the outcome was grim, I began to be plagued by this weird thought that I dreamed my entire childhood up — that it was possible all of those memories were false somehow, that if there was no one still alive to verify those facts, they weren’t facts. I felt like everyone who had witnessed and shared that part of my life was gone. And if they weren’t there to attest to that time, did those memories still even exist? Did it ever even happen?

This is part of something I wrote when I was at home visiting my grandpa in the hospital last winter. It’s something that may not make sense to anyone else, but for whatever reason, I really like it, so I’ll share it here.

“… This song keeps ending, this dog keeps sighing in his sleep, minutes tick by and shove those years further in the past.
‘It’s okay. Hey, you couldn’t possibly ever understand, because everyone who witnessed my childhood is dead or on their way.’
Where is that supposed to go? Where am I supposed to put it?

Time, and specifically memories, should follow Robert’s Rules of Order. If I were to ask God’s secretary, he or she should be able to provide me with some sort of filed documentation — the ‘minutes’ of these years, typed and organized, to prove that that time in my life existed, that I didn’t dream it.

That I was happy, and life was perfect. That there were screen doors, crickets, classical music and lightning bugs. And that hands with paper thin skin tucked me in each night, while Danish prayers were uttered and botched by my rosy little mouth.

I want to know, for sure, what I remember so well — that the house smelled like library books and groaned like a ship at sea. That vinyl seats stuck to my little thighs, that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches stuck to my cheeks, and that I was in love with everything.”

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