Park Slope Reader

Laura Broadwell

What Would I Wear?

By Filed Under: Park Slope Lit

I’ve never been completely comfortable with the concept of dating, and the though of doing so in later life terrifies me to no end. By comparison, I know people my age who actually enjoy the dating process-combing through dating apps, dressing up, and meeting perfect strangers.

For many years now, I have been a stay-at-home worker, a Zoomer ahead of the times. Even before COVID-19 made hermits and multitaskers of us all, turning our kitchen tables into office space, I “commuted” from my bed to my desk each morning, ready to start my day. 

So, it’s no surprise that my typical work attire has been casual, sometimes bordering on the eclec- tic. This morning, for instance, I threw on a warm, furry bathrobe, cotton leggings, and festive Christmas slipper socks, even though that holiday has long since passed. I gave my dark, graying hair a quick brush and avoided makeup altogether. Later when I run out to do errands, I’ll slip into a pair of trusty jeans, a sweater, well-worn boots, and one of three sets of favored silver earrings. Over the years, I’ve fallen into an all-too- predictable comfort zone, both in mind-set and appearance—a pattern that’s had both its upsides and potential downfalls.

For the most part, I’ve embraced my casual way of life and its associ- ated style of dress for nearly two decades now. Rather than worry about what to wear to the “office” each day, I’ve focused on adopting and raising a daughter, caring for elderly parents, deepening my spiritual life, tend- ing to friendships. For better or for worse (depending on how you view things), I’ve mostly—and unabashedly—been single, so dressing up and pulling together a cute outfit has not been a top priority.

To be fair, I am not—and never have been—an enthusiastic or casual dater. In my sixty-four years on the planet, I’ve had my share of long-term relationships, ambiguous partnerships, and cherished friendships with men. I’ve even had my celebrity crushes. But I’ve never been completely comfortable with the concept of dating, and the thought of doing so in later life terrifies me to no end. By comparison, I know people my age who actually enjoy the dating process—combing through dating apps, dress- ing up, and meeting perfect strangers. If one date doesn’t work out, they simply move on to the next. Impressed by their resilience, I call them pro- fessional daters.

On occasion, however, I’ll find myself fighting of a bout of regret should I see a couple with that certain glow, that divinely fated relationship. I won- der how it might feel to have that rare soulful bond, a special connection of my own. In these moments, I think that maybe, just maybe, I could ven- ture out of my comfort zone and take a chance at dating. But, at the age of sixty-four and counting, I seriously wonder, What would I wear?

When I was younger, in my twenties and thirties, long before I became a mother, I was more cavalier in my approach to dressing up. Feeling more confident in my body, I might have thrown on a short, fitted skirt, a sleeve- less top, and a pair of suede pumps for a night out with friends. I might have painted my lips a bright scarlet red or attempted a smoky eye just for fun. In those days, I walked with a certain levity, even a bit of swagger. Back then, the weight of my emotions had yet to wear me down. I had fewer worry lines, fewer disappointments, and ten fewer pounds to cam- ouflage. Of course, I had my problems and insecurities then; it’s just that life—and my wardrobe issues—seemed simpler.

These days I dress not to stand out but to cover up, to feel more invis- ible. I dress to hide the various assaults on my body sustained over the years—the surgeries in my fifties and sixties that caught me of guard; the death of my parents (and younger family members) that struck me repeatedly with blows of grief. I dress for comfort and dependability as a

way to center—and protect—myself from the world. I dress as a woman in her sixties, not sure how to change her style.

Not long ago, I spoke to three friends about the topic of dressing and dating. My friend Shawn, though partnered for years, had this to say: “I think comfort is necessary when you go on a date at our age. It’s respectful to be clean and neat and have a bit of polish, but not to the extent to where you feel vulnerable or on display. Haven’t we spent enough of our lives being judged by our physical appearance?” Another friend, Lisa, married for decades and now single, added this: “I’ve been told that we don’t need much makeup at our age. It’s best to let our eyes tell the story.”

Each of these points resonated with me, distinctly. For starters, I’ll admit that part of my reluctance to date comes down to judgment. In my experience, women are held often to a higher standard than men and judged more critically—and perhaps disproportionately—by our physical appearance. We have to try harder to look good, despite all of our accom- plishments. As we age, we are given less of a pass than men are. We are unfairly overlooked by youth, a favored commodity. And while I’ve worked hard for years to develop a sense of self-worth and confidence—based less on looks and fashion and more on my character and values—I’m still at the mercy of these cultural constructs, ingrained deeply within me.

So, when it comes to the topic of dressing and dating, I find myself ask- ing these questions: What would a potential partner think of me when eyeing me up initially—and would I be willing (or tolerant enough) to open myself up to such scrutiny? If I were to attempt to improve my dressing game, with a pair of fitted pants, a scarf, sunglasses, and some makeup— dressing for comfort and polish, as Shawn suggests—would I appear to be somewhat of an imposter? Would a set of new clothes, an upgraded image, conceal the very essence of who I am: a woman in her sixties, who is prone to feeling vibrant and youthful one day, defeated and tired the next? Would a pair of new shoes be enough to disguise my mistrust of men,

based fairly or unfairly on my past? Would my eyes be able to tell my story—and if so, which story would it tell?

My friend Mary has known me since I was twenty-three and a univer- sity student in California. For many years, Mary has heard my tales of life, travel, work, and family, and has been part of the narrative on more than a few occasions. Since we’ve both been independently single for vast stretches of our friendship, we’ve laughed (and cried) over our love lives, our exes, our dreams, our indecisions. So, when I asked Mary recently what I should wear if I were to go on a date at my age, she answered— directly—with her trademark humor, “Some black lingerie?” Her response made me laugh and cringe simultaneously, as I gazed on the snow falling softly outside my window, threw on an extra sweater, and thought, black lingerie would have to wait for another day (or maybe forever).

Part 2

Several months have passed and a bleak winter sky has given way to the gentle unfolding of spring. In a wave of energy this morning, I washed my front windows, swept up dry leaves, and folded a stack of purple sweaters, black jeans, and gray socks, worn to oblivion in the cold. As I felt the warm sun filter in, I drew a sigh of relief—and as I looked out my window, I sensed that my vision was slowly improving, getting clearer. A few months ago, I had one of those unexpected medical events that creep up on you when you’re living life in your sixties. Unbeknownst to me, a layer of scar tissue had formed on the retina of my right eye, so for weeks on end, I was ban- ished to doctors’ offices, to operating rooms, and to my home to recover from surgery. I struggled with blurry vision, a sensitivity to light, and a reluctance to leave my home. The simple thought of socializing, much less dating, exhausted me. I wondered what a path forward might look like.

But with the arrival of spring, and an emergence from the darkness of vision problems, I’ve found a world bathed in color, in light. The signs of hope and renewal—and synchronicities—are everywhere. Earlier

this morning, I looked out my window to find two mourning doves perched on the fire escape, their soft, drawn-out calls piercing the still city air. It’s been said that when a pair of doves come to visit (as they do each spring), they are a symbol of devotion, friendship, and love—a bea- con of healing, forgiveness, peace. An indication to move on.

On this morning in early spring, I stood wrapped in my bathrobe, watching those pufed-up, slender-tailed birds court, preen, and chase one another across leafy yards, devoid of self-consciousness, free. In their grayness, their nakedness, their sheer commitment to the moment, they shared a dance, a journey, however temporary. In my shared grayness, and with my teacup in hand, I turned from the window smiling, ready to start my day.

Loyalty to Place

By Filed Under: Park Slope Life

After many years here – and anchored by deep ancestral roots – I often wonder how Park Slope will factor into my future.

In late January, on the day I turned 65, I walked past Methodist Hospital and looked up at the mid-winter sky, a gray sky streaked with pink and brightened by a pale yellow sun. It was a sky – and a building – I’ve come to know all too well.

In 1957, I was born in Methodist Hospital to Helen Broadwell, who hailed from Greece; and to Michael Broadwell, the son of a Lebanese immigrant, a widowed mother. In 2012, I nearly died there, when my appendix burst unexpectedly, landing me in the ICU. Less than a year later, my mother would die at Methodist, at the age of 88, holding the hand of my daughter, her namesake. 

How did this all come to pass? I was born in Park Slope on a cloudy winter’s day. But eight months later, my parents, grandmother, great-aunt and I all piled into our blue and white family Dodge and moved out to the sandy shores of Long Island. For years, my parents would talk about “16th Street” and how happy they were to have left it behind in favor of their split-level home in the suburbs. At 17, I left those suburbs to learn more about myself and to find my place in the world. I lived in New England, California and Mexico. I traveled far and wide. New York City – and Brooklyn – were never part of my plan. 

But in 1983, I returned to New York to work in publishing and to live closer to my family. I commuted from Long Island into Manhattan every day, and in due time, I began looking for a place of my own. One day in the spring of 1984, a co-worker told me of a room in a Brooklyn apartment she was vacating and asked whether I wanted to see it. The room was tiny, she said. It faced Flatbush Avenue (loud!). But the rent was $200 a month. Brooklyn hadn’t been on my radar as a potential place to live. But what did I have to lose?

On a warm day in April, my co-worker and I boarded the 2 train and got out at Grand Army Plaza. As I emerged from the station and looked up at that magnificent arch above me, I was struck by the most powerful feeling: I was home! I stood there in awe, not knowing what to say or think. But within weeks, I was moving into that tiny room on the edge of Park Slope; and in time, I would move to another apartment, and then another, until I finally settled into a duplex on 8th Avenue. It overlooked Methodist Hospital, and I lived there for 26 years. 

There are many reasons why I’ve been loyal to Park Slope, for everything it has given me and perhaps taken. Park Slope after all was a place where my dad grew up, playing stickball in the street in the 1930s and early 40s. During World War II, my father traveled far and wide while in the Navy, but often sent letters home to his mom, who lived in an apartment on 16th Street. I still have those yellowed letters tucked away in my closet for safekeeping. I also have black and white portraits of my mother in her wedding dress, taken in Park Slope in the 1950s, and photos of me here as a baby. I have stories of my great-aunt Martha and our adventures in Prospect Park – tales of her falling asleep beside me on a bench while I napped in my carriage peacefully; accounts of the strange man who once asked if he could please hold the baby. 

In my 40s, I raised my daughter, Eleni, in Park Slope, echoing my grandmother as a single mother. In other parallel experiences, Eleni was baptized at the same Greek Orthodox church, on 18th Street, where I was christened as an infant. As a young child, Eleni took frequent Sunday strolls in the park with my parents, napping in the fresh air and playing at the 3rd Street Playground for hours. In her later years, my mother even returned to Park Slope (albeit against her will), when she was widowed and elderly. As her dementia worsened over time, my mom would insist that she still lived in her home on Long Island. But on a cold night in February, on what would have been my father’s 88th birthday, my mother died in Methodist Hospital, the place where she birthed me. She was holding my daughter’s hand. In that moment, the four of us – my parents, Eleni and I – came together in Park Slope, full circle. 

That’s not to say that I’m always enamored of my home or how it has changed over the decades. More often than not, I grumble along with the best of them, recalling how so much of the neighborhood’s character has faded. I miss the small family run shops and the local restaurants I once frequented. I hate the ever-rising price of real estate and the shuttered storefronts on 7th Avenue. I feel unmoored by an air of transience I can’t shake. But then something happens, some grand event, like the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, or the more recent Covid outbreak, and I see where my loyalties lie. 

In the spring of 2020, my daughter and I hunkered down in our apartment to ride out the worst of the pandemic. We watched as cars pulled away from our street, as neighbors left for greener pastures. We listened as ambulance sirens blared, and birds chirped, and as the neighbors who remained behind banged pots and pans at 7 p.m. to cheer on the workers at Methodist. As I walked down an open street, masked and socially distant, as I shopped at a local vendor or helped a friend sick with Covid, there was no question in my mind. I wanted to be home. In those dark early days, those frightening days, I needed the comfort of Park Slope as much as it needed me. 

But in January I turned 65, and some bigger questions have plagued me, questions that will inform my future. What is the (literal and figurative price) of loyalty? I wonder. Why am I still here? With my parents and ancestors long gone now, and my own days ahead growing shorter, what am I holding on to? What am I afraid of facing if I leave? What – or whom – do I fear losing? Is my sense of loyalty warranted, or is it displaced? What would my future look like if I stay?

I often think about places in the world and why we form an attachment: Aren’t we all just a small part of their history? I know that Park Slope had a life of its own long before I moved here in the 1980s, and well before my father, his mother and his sister arrived in the 1930s. I know too that this place that has tested me and nurtured me, frustrated me and watched me and my daughter grow will be here for decades and hopefully centuries to come. The brownstones that have weathered history, the tall arch shadowing Grand Army Plaza, the new gleaming high-rises, the young and more established families…each will all have own their story to tell. I also recognize humbly that my Park Slope story is an infinitesimal one – a mere pinpoint on a canvas of a million dots. To those who’ve come before me, and to those who’ll come after, my story will be but one in a landscape that ever changes. 

My Part of the Equation

By Filed Under: Community Tagged With:

When I adopted my daughter from China in 1999 – and brought her home to live in Brooklyn – I was unaware of my racial privilege. Now, I see things differently.

A version of this essay originally appeared on the Holt International website.

On the morning of July 7, 1999 – a day of lucky 7s – my life changed. After many months of waiting and nail-biting anticipation, I received a package in the mail containing my daughter’s referral photo. Before I knew it, I was one step closer to becoming a mother. Du Xue Jing – as she was then named – was 7 months old at the time, but her little moon-shaped face, wise eyes and pouty lips already suggested that she and I would be great friends, a dynamic single-mother-and-daughter duo. At the age of 42, I felt humbled by the confidence instilled in me by adoption officials on two continents and blessed to be given this opportunity to become a mother. 

Within weeks of receiving my referral, I was off to central China to adopt my baby daughter. I decided to name her Eleni, in honor of my mother, born in Greece; and I kept Xue Jing as Eleni’s middle name, in tribute to her birth country. I hoped the significance of both names – Eleni Xue Jing – would link my child to her present and to her past and reflect the breadth of our tri-continental, interracial family. Engulfed by love for my daughter (not to mention new-mother fatigue), I looked past our physical differences and never dreamed of a day when the disparity in our races would be of concern. 

In 1999, U.S. families adopted more than 4,100 children from China, and as I walked around Park Slope that summer, I was certain that many of those families had landed near me. Day after day, as I pushed Eleni’s stroller down 8th Avenue or up toward the park, I’d pass other white parents with small children from Asia. As we crossed paths, we’d nod at one another, smile in recognition and often stop abruptly to have a conversation. “How long did it take you to adopt?” we would ask. “Is your child sleeping through the night?” “Have you found a good pediatrician?” “Do you want to get together for a playdate?” Suddenly, I had a built-in community.

That’s not to say that Eleni and I didn’t venture out to other parts of the city. On some days, we’d stroll over to my favorite Korean green grocer to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. I laughed when this man, whose store I’d shopped at for years, took one look at Eleni and smiled at me for the first time – ever. On other days, we’d take the subway to Chinatown, where waiters circled our table in restaurants, giving Eleni the star treatment while presenting her with kid-friendly chopsticks. As Eleni grew older, she and I ate traditional moon cakes at Autumn Moon festivals. We bundled up in the cold to watch dancing dragons wind their way down frenetic streets in Chinatown during Lunar New Year celebrations. We traveled mostly in white circles but lived in New York, a racially diverse, multi-ethnic city. The question of race – and what my daughter might experience – didn’t really cross my mind then. As one of many interracial families in our city, why would it?

In retrospect, my perceptions and expectations were perhaps naïve. In her early years, Eleni attended schools and played on Brooklyn sports teams that were largely white but that had kids of all races, including Asian. For the most part, we were insulated as a family from the kinds of comments – and racial slurs – that we might have endured had we lived in a less-diverse environment. Still, there were the off-handed remarks and gestures made by children on the playground about the shape of Eleni’s eyes. There was the Asian boy in middle school who referred to me as a “bad Asian mom” because I failed to prepare rice for Lunar New Year one winter. (“My mom’s white,” Eleni shot back, hoping to correct him once and for all.) When Eleni traveled to outlying white suburbs to play with her soccer team, parents on the sidelines would sometimes refer to her by her ethnicity during a game. “Watch out for that Chinese girl!” a dad would say as Eleni was closing in on the ball, about to make a play. She listened as friends told her they considered her white “just like us,” or better yet, that she was an Oreo, “yellow on the outside, white on the inside.”

But it wasn’t until Eleni was in high school that I began to see my race as part of the equation. One day Eleni came home from school talking about an article she had read called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” by Peggy McIntosh. Not quite understanding how my race afforded me privilege, I read the piece myself and was struck by the notion of how seldom I thought about my whiteness. For the first time, I considered these questions: Did being white hamper my ability to move freely through the day – my world – without fear or repercussion? Was I often made to feel “othered,” even though I grew up in a multi-generational family of non-native-English speakers? Was my race a liability – or used against me routinely – in any way? Was I viewed as a perpetual foreigner, or (just as insultingly) a model minority? Was I ever confused with another white person who resembled me vaguely, or told that all white people look alike? In most cases, the answer was no. 

At the age of 23, however, my daughter has had a different experience in the world. For four years, Eleni attended a predominantly white liberal arts college, known for its small class size and low professor-to-student ratio. Yet on occasion, a professor would transpose Eleni’s identity with that of another Asian student, calling each by the other’s name, even though they looked nothing alike. (This didn’t occur among white students, incidentally.)

During a semester abroad in Europe, Eleni was sometimes catcalled by men who used the native word for Chinese, or who spoke to her in a mock Chinese dialect. In America, Eleni has been asked questions – by the security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, an Uber driver and others – that imply that she is a perpetual foreigner: “Where are you from? Have long have you lived here?” “Where is your family from? Will you be spending the holidays with ‘your people’?”

Sometimes the questions are meant to be “conversational,” such as when a car service driver near her former college asked – and then proclaimed, “Did you go home for Christmas? It must have been nice to speak your native language and eat the food of your people.” But sometimes being viewed as a “foreigner” has had more serious repercussions.

Earlier this year, when Covid-19 was rampant in New York, Asian people – much like my daughter – were screamed at to “Go home!” and blamed for the spread of the coronavirus. Elderly Asians and even some younger ones were brutally attacked while minding their own business on the street or doing a simple errand. The news in the press and on social media was shocking, disturbing, devastating, and it took a toll on my daughter. Eleni suddenly felt scared to run in Prospect Park, a place she’s frequented since childhood. She refused to ride the subway alone, as she had since she was a preteen. She became anxious to leave our home. 

One night when the news was particularly awful, Eleni wanted to talk about it. Feeling weary of the never-ending grip of Covid and its restrictions, the general uptick in crime in our city and the horrible attacks on Asians throughout the country, all I could muster was a simple, “I’m so tired, Eleni. Can we talk about this tomorrow?” My daughter looked at me curiously and responded, “You’re tired, Mom? Think about how I feel.” And there it was – another moment that made me pause. Sure, I was having my own bouts of fatigue and anxiety. Yes, I had my own widespread concerns. But the truth was that none of them were connected to my race, my whiteness. Due to no virtue or valor of my own, due only to my privilege, I could walk down the street freely (masked up and socially distanced), go for a walk in the park, run an errand, meet a friend, all without fear of retribution. The same could not be said for Eleni. 

Later that evening, I sat in the dark with my daughter, hoping to comfort her before bed. I thought about the ways in which I could protect her, much as I did when she was a baby, nestled safely in my front pack. I thought about how I could shake up the world and make it better behave. I thought about my love for my daughter, and how helpless I felt then and there. So I did what I’ve done so many times as a mother, in both good times and bad. I put my hand gently on Eleni’s back and told her we’d talk more in the morning. In that moment, in silence, it was the least – and best – I could do. 

Tagline: A version of this story first appeared on the Holt International website (holtinternational.org) in November 2021. Holt International is a non-profit organization that helps strengthen families at risk of separation, provides care and support to orphaned and vulnerable children, and unites children and families through adoption. 

Life in Balance

By Filed Under: Books, Community, Park Slope Lit, Park Slope Reading, Reader Excerpt Tagged With: , ,

Excerpted from Tick Tock: Essays on Becoming a Parent After 40 edited by Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin (Dottir Press, 2021

My daughter, Eleni, is twenty-one now, but I distinctly remember a day when she was two and I was desperately trying to convince her to put on her shoes so we could go out to play. Eleni was running around distractedly and wouldn’t listen, while my mother, then seventy-five, was repeatedly asking me unrelated questions—something about a neighbor and what we would like for dinner. As I answered my mother’s questions, she asked them again because she was hard of hearing. For what seemed to be an eternity, I found myself caught in a cycle of speaking louder and louder to a two-year-old who wouldn’t listen and to a seventy-five-year-old who couldn’t hear. To a bystander, the scene may have seemed comical, but I was not amused. 

In retrospect, that particular day was golden. The sun was shining, my father—also seventy-five—was out for a run, and my mother was still able to cook the foods of her native Greece. Though I was an exhausted, older single mother, I found immense joy in (eventually) taking my daughter out to play, and, as an only child, I reveled in the fact that my parents had finally been granted a grandchild. My family now felt whole and complete. 

In a few years’ time, things would change. 

“Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a mother; and as I crept toward forty and remained unmarried, this dream, this ambition, didn’t fade. Then when I was forty-one, a confluence of factors arose that made motherhood seem possible.”

Living in an unusually sizable apartment in Brooklyn, I had a steady job that I loved, supportive parents and friends who resided near my home, and a surprising ally in the Chinese government. Though things have changed since, there existed a window of time, a fortuitous opening, when the Chinese government allowed a single woman over forty to adopt a healthy infant—in most cases, a baby girl. (For me this was a bonus, since I intended to raise a child on my own.) On top of that, the adoption process in China was fairly straightforward; and with some luck, it appeared I could be in China within eighteen months, a new mother to a baby daughter. After much thought and reasonable trepidation, I decided to pursue this option. 

On August 16, 1999, I arrived at a dimly lit registrar’s office in central China, where I was handed an eight-month-old baby. At the age of forty-two, I suddenly became a first-time mother. I named my daughter Eleni in honor of my own mother, who had waited patiently for her first and only grandchild. Then nine days later, we flew home to New York, where my parents and friends greeted us at the airport. Eleni and I were set to begin our new life together. 

Our first two years in Brooklyn passed quickly. Eleni was a happy child, a curious child, a child who never slept. By extension, I was always exhausted, holding down a full-time job, caring for my daughter, having few spare moments to myself. But as an older mother, I viewed this juggling act and ever-present fatigue as a small price to pay for the joy of raising a child. As a parent over forty, I’d had countless years of “me time,” during which I could travel, see friends, build a career. So spending a Saturday afternoon with my parents and Eleni was more than enough to make me happy. Having my mother prepare Greek meals and bring them to our house, or seeing my dad play so energetically in the park with my daughter, fulfilled me. I was grateful for my job, grateful to reside in a neighborhood with other adoptive families and little girls from China, and grateful for the multicultural city in which I lived. By some divine stroke of luck, everything seemed in order. 

But as it happens, the best-laid plans often go awry. On September 11, 2001, when Eleni was almost three, the World Trade Center was hit by terrorists, bringing our city to its knees. Several weeks later, the magazine at which I’d worked for nearly a decade folded, citing a consistent loss of revenue. Then, in the spring of 2004, my seventy-nine-year-old father—the bedrock of our family, a man with boundless energy—was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer. How supremely unfair it felt that a man who had valued his health and had so much to live for would be struck with such a fatal illness. Within six months of his diagnosis, my father died, leaving me with countless business affairs to look after, a broken heart, and a mother and daughter who were beyond bereaved. 

Eleni was five, almost six, when her grandpa died, so it was hard for her to comprehend how this vibrant man had left us. On the playground at school, Eleni would look up at the sky and see her grandfather’s wispy, white hair in the cloud formation above her. In class, she described his spirit as coming to her “like a wind,” helping her with her math problems. My dad was athletic, so in tribute to him, Eleni learned to play soccer and tennis. She was fast on her feet and adopted my father’s work ethic. 

My mother, on the other hand, was seventy-nine when her husband died. For years, her health had been faltering, first with coronary bypass surgery in her early fifties, then later with various issues causing memory loss and pain. My mother was surprisingly strong, having survived not only these health problems but also the shelling of Athens during World War II, yet somehow, she liked to convince everyone that she was weak, a victim who needed constant care. 

My father had been that primary caregiver, her rock—her lifeline to the world. When he died, my mother was understandably adrift. In order to protect her, my father had declined to tell my mother exactly how sick he was, perhaps believing he had more time to live than he did. But her lack of emotional preparedness and the relative speed of my father’s passing sent my mother into a tailspin. There were days when she stubbornly refused to take her medication and her memory loss worsened. There were times when she became short-tempered with Eleni and with me. 

As the weeks passed, I tried to keep our lives in Brooklyn in balance. My daughter was in first grade now, learning to read, write, and socialize. I was working from home as a freelance writer and editor, which gave me flexibility in terms of time and workflow. But every weekend, Eleni and I would run out to my mother’s house some fifty miles away to check up on her and a family friend who’d agreed to stay temporarily. My mother was sad, lonely, and increasingly confused, and it became clear she would soon need a higher level of care. The turning point came a short while later, when my mother arrived at my apartment for an extended visit. As she bent to tie her shoelaces one day, she slipped and fell, fracturing a vertebra in her back. It was the last day my mother would walk independently. She would soon need a wheelchair. 

Faced with this new set of circumstances and knowing my mother could no longer live independently, I decided to move her to Brooklyn, into a sunny assisted-care facility near my home. I hired loving professional aides to care for my mother and I visited almost daily. But although the logistics of having my mother close by made life easier, I was still wracked with guilt. I knew my mom was suffering. 

For one thing, my mother wanted to go home, and home meant her house on Long Island. Because of her deepening dementia and overwhelming grief, my mother couldn’t understand why she couldn’t live alone and why my father had left her. In an effort to comfort her and settle her nerves, I brought my mother some personal belongings, including a painting she loved of me and Eleni. I also brought my six-year-old daughter to visit her whenever possible. Sometimes Eleni would draw or play contentedly, and sometimes we would all sit together on the couch, watching TV. But on other days, both my mother and Eleni would vie for my attention while an aide was trying to talk to me. At still other times, Eleni found it too hard to visit. It was tough for her to reconcile the grandma she’d once known with the one now lying in a hospital bed. How could this be possible? 

For more than eight years, I was tasked with balancing the needs of both my mother and daughter. Early on, I decided it would be easier for me to see my mother on my own, preferably when Eleni was at school or at a friend’s house. I could sit and hold my mother’s hand or help feed her. I could take her to doctor visits, check on her medication, and talk to her aides without interruption. Eleni would come for shorter visits, after school or on the weekends. 

My days with Eleni at home and in the world were cherished times and often proved to be the antidote, the needed balance, to caring for an aging parent. As a first-time mother—and an older one, at that—I loved every stage of Eleni’s development. As she grew, my daughter played sports. She read and watched movies. She danced. She had friends. She grew taller than me and at times her grandmother barely recognized her, instead remembering her as a smaller child. While my mother drifted in and out of reality and often in and out of hospitals and hospice care, my daughter found joy in real-life activities. She was thriving, and her curiosity about the world buoyed me. 

Eleni also knew intuitively that I was doing my best in a difficult situation. From the time she was six until she was fourteen, Eleni watched as I cared for my mother as she edged closer to dying and bounced back again. She, along with family friends, helped me clear out our Long Island home with its more-than-fifty-years’ worth of possessions, and she was there on the tearful day we sold it to help pay for my mother’s care. Five years after my father’s mesothelioma diagnosis, I was diagnosed with early-stage endometrial cancer and required surgery. Eleni was there to greet me at home with her godparents on the day I returned from the hospital. I was fortunate in that Eleni had always been a considerate child and a fairly easy one to raise. And as she grew older and into her teen years, she empathetically cut me slack when my conflicting duties got the best of me. 

In hindsight, it’s hard to say how I—we, all three of us— got through those challenging years. Sometimes things fell apart, such as when an aide, Eleni, and I took my mother to a doctor’s appointment and got stranded when our wheelchair-accessible transport failed to arrive. Other times, I lost my patience; occasionally, I completely lost my temper with everyone. Eleni had hard days of her own and sometimes seemed inconsolable despite my best efforts to support her. But even in my worst moments, I was lucky enough to have a village to help raise my child and care for my aging mother. 

During those years, I thought often of my father and how he had run marathons later into life, driven by a will of steel. When he died, it felt as if I’d followed in his footsteps. My marathon, however, was of an emotional nature, a very long race that would call for a great deal of energy, determination, and grit in order to reach the finish line. But because I was an older parent in my late forties and fifties during those “sandwich” years, I was able to draw on decades of my own life experience and find wells of strength I never believed I had. 

I was also willing to refocus my priorities on both my mother and daughter, knowing I had one shot to get this right. (As a result, my career and personal life were indefinitely put on hold.) It soon became clear that I couldn’t help my mother get “better,” but I was dedicated to helping her find some measure of comfort and peace. Over time she became less verbal, making it hard to know exactly what she needed and why she held on for so long. But as one of her nurses once told me, “She has too much love. She’s not going anywhere.” As for Eleni, I had waited so long to become a mother that I wanted our experience together to be memorable. I wanted to soak up all the time we had at each stage of her journey, whether it was the big things, like going to Disney World when she was nine, or the small things, like watching Harry Potter movies on repeat. Her joy, happiness, and sound emotional development were at the top of my to-do list each and every day.

In the end, my mother chose the time and place of her passing. On February 15, 2013, on what would have been my father’s eighty-eighth birthday and one week short of her own, my mother died in the Brooklyn hospital where I was born more than fifty years earlier. In another act of perfect symmetry, she was holding the hand of my daughter, a child who was then fourteen and had been named after her, years earlier. 

It was an emotional walk home from the hospital that night. But when we arrived back at our apartment, I pulled out my mother’s wedding ring, a simple, silver band with tiny, twinkling diamonds – a symbol of my parents’ long commitment. I slipped the ring onto my hand thinking I might wear it, but it just didn’t look right on me, so I offered it to Eleni. By some stroke of magic, it fit perfectly on her long, slender ring finger, and I joked that my mother’s ring chose its wearer, just like Harry Potter’s wand chose him. 

Eleni has worn my mother’s ring religiously since that night. It traveled with her and protected her on the subways she took to high school. It swam with her and glistened in the turquoise-dappled waters of the Aegean Sea. It accompanied her to college and to a semester abroad in Italy. It has been given a new life, a new set of adventures in a modern world. My mother’s ring was one that I loved and admired during childhood, and it’s a ring my daughter wears proudly now in memory of her namesake. It’s a symbol of the time that my mother, Eleni, and I all spent together—and a symbol that we all made it through. 

Tick Tock reading at Community Bookstore on Wednesday, 10/6 at 7:30PM EDT featuring Laura Broadwell, Cathy Arnst, Jean Leung, Salma Abdelnour, and editors Vicki Breitbart and Nan Bauer-Maglin.