Incorporating your suggestions, which were so incredibly helpful, I am moving forward with this and have rewritten the beginning. Tomorrow I hope to complete a draft of the whole piece. I would so appreciate any and all feedback, but if you can, send it to the blog so I will have it all in one place. Many of you sent super helpful comments to my e-mail account, which I cut and pasted onto the original document for easy access, but it's easier for me if they're here. I changed the blog so you can now post as anonymous, if that helps. I have noticed, and find it endearing, that a few of you "anonymous" commenters out there seem keen on leaving tips as to your identity. I love this, for some reason.
And tonight, I am especially proud to be a democrat.
Four Generations
By Amy Wilensky
This first time it happened Lily was just a few months old. We were sitting on a bench in New York’s Union Square after shopping at the greenmarket: my grandmother, mother, daughter and me. My father had gone ahead to our favorite restaurant to wait by the door and stake our claim at the bar as soon as it opened. Our plan was to rest up Mormor so she’d be ready to push the stroller—which serves as a sort of walker on wheels for her—in time to meet up for lunch.
A man walked by, middle-aged, polished in camelhair coat and cashmere scarf. He smiled at my grandmother, whose rosy cheeks and coronet braids give her a Norman Rockwell appearance, but she was so focused on Lily she didn’t notice him standing there. I smiled back on her behalf, as I find myself doing these days, and watched him take in the rest of us: my mother, reorganizing bags of produce and cartons of eggs, me, slunk down on the bench like a 30-something teenager, the intimations of a baby under a daunting bunch of pussywillows.
"Is this four generations?" he asked, stopping for a moment, addressing the question at me, and for an instant I thought he meant was that the name of the park. Then, it hit me, so obvious, although I’d never used those words before to explain it. I took it in, then, the group we made: my nearly-90-year-old grandmother’s finger being grasped by my four-month-old child. Together, our lives spanned nearly a century.
"Yes," my mother finally answered the man, and I knew it had taken her, too, by surprise, the recognition by a total stranger of a bond, a privilege, we had never overtly acknowledged.
"That's just terrific," the man said, shaking his head in amazement. "Just wonderful. I hope you know how lucky you are.
Since that afternoon four years ago, there have been many more incidents like this one, so many that I am no longer surprised by how observant people actually are. Our unique situation has been noted, and commented on, and even celebrated here in New York, where I live, dozens of times, but also in my hometown in Massachuetts, where my parents and grandmother live, on every vacation we’ve taken as a group, at weddings, in airports, walking down the street.
It has made me aware that the situation is, well, unusual.
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2 comments:
I love this and am interested in what the man's comment, "just terrific" referred to. Was he amazed by the span of ages, or was he taken aback by the fact that it is so rare these days to live close enough to our family members to actually spend time together - especially in NYC - or, and I think someone may have posted a similar comment to this earlier - was he struck by the fact that four generations would actually WANT to spend time together - something rarer still, i think. Just some thoughts about what your luck actually involved...
I'm impressed on a number of counts. First, that people sent in suggestions; second, that you worked in some of them; and third, that the beginning is working so well. The transition, "Since that afternoon ..." is perfect. Wonder if you should say who Mormor is? Might be confusing for the reader who doesn't know. Coo-ell.
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