I want to share with you my memories of certain experiences
and people that have come in to my life and sadly are no longer here. I’d like to start out with the summer when I
was six. It was my first flight ever,
and I was by myself flying to NYC from the mid-west as a six-year-old. I was so
excited and happy! I got to meet the pilots and get my plastic little wings
pinned on me by a beautiful stewardess.
I got to sit at the front by the window and fell in love with flying.
When I arrived in NYC my aunt and uncle lived in a building
on the corner of 124th Street and Rockaway Beach Blvd, in Rockaway
Beach, NY. The building was located at the end of the beach block, and it had a grand
entrance, foyer and staircase. Built back in the early nineteen hundred’s it
housed plenty of single people that worked in the city. I was told by a long
time resident that many actors had lived there. I can imagine how the foyer may
have looked like with chairs and couches back in its heyday, but when I arrived
it was large and empty, only a wall of locked mailboxes. The majority of the apartments studios with very
few being one or two bedrooms. The elevator
in the building and was tiny even by a six-year old’s perception, and it always
kept breaking down. Next to the elevator
there was an apartment where Frances, John and their Mom lived.
I wasn’t shy about knocking on the door when I realized that
Frances lived there and he was my age. The
door opened their mom was holding John on her hip. All John had on was a diaper
and a full head of brown straight hair with bangs, he must have been about 2 or 3 years old. I asked their Mom if Frances
could come out and play in the foyer with me.
Frances bounced out of the house with his curly blonde hair and bright
eyes. That entire summer we played
together in the foyer with our imaginations running wild! We had such a great time together!
I would visit every summer but as we got older, we grew apart, and I always knew that both John and Frances were a bit different. Their childhood wasn’t normal as they spent a lot of time in doctor’s offices and hospitals. They were both hemophiliacs. By the time we were teenagers in the mid 80’s HIV was prevalent and both boys got infected. It was taboo, people shunned the ones that contracted the virus and I can't imagine what they both went through growing up during that time
I
came back to live full time in NYC when I was 19 with a baby in tow. Staying with my Aunt and Uncle again, this
time across the street from the building in a house they bought. From the front porch I saw
Frances walking down the street in an intense conversation with a young lady
about the same age. I could see he was
upset just the way he was walking and smoking the cigarette in his hand. As
much as I wanted to run down and say hello, I didn’t want to interrupt them. It was the last time I saw him before he died
from complication of HIV. John died a
couple of years later.
Around the time that John died, I was walking down the
street with my son in hand, when Frances and Johns Mom was walking towards me.
She stopped in front of me and told me that she has lost her purpose in life
since both her children were gone and didn’t know what to do with her life. I remember just standing there and looking at
her then down at my own four-year-old son knowing what she meant, but I didn't
have any type of response but a nod.
I will always remember Frances as my childhood friend
playing in the Foyer in the building and John in diapers in his Mother’s arms. They will always be in my heart.
