Staten Island
Well, it's day 3 already! I woke up to my Mom, Jill shaking me "Gem(that's my nickname), Gem.. wake up."
I rolled over and rubbed my eyes to see my parents standing aside my bed and they even had coffee for me.
"Dad and I are going to watch the sunrise on the roof, do you want to wake the girls?" Mom asked me as she handed me a cup of coffee.
I rolled out of bed and took the coffee. "Yeah, let's wake them - I think they'd like that."
So, we woke the girls and headed(stumbled for me.) towards the fire escape to the rooftop.
The sunrise was gorgeous. Looking down at the street and hearing the morning traffic, watching a few people hustling and bustling on their way to work. This was wonderful. Something I am not accustomed to. Usually, when I look out my window I see the ocean, the farm or the village far off in the distance. This is all so new to me, yet so lovely.
While standing there drinking my coffee I heard Ivy whisper "Mommy? Who's that man?" I looked around.. I saw no one. "Honey, I don't see man.. where?" She pointed across the way to the next building. "That man." There was a man standing over there reading the newspaper. Probably doing the same thing we were.. just enjoying the morning. However, upon a bit of nosey squinting and staring.. I noticed something. That wasn't just -any- man.. that was Norman Reedus. Holy crap!
I whispered to Ivy who was over there reading the paper and she began to squeal and clap. She likes that man.. for whatever reason. Unfortunately, he went back inside shortly after we realized who it was. Ivy was so sad. She'd hoped to meet him, or any celebrity in NYC. Bummer.. eh well. After a small crying episode we went back downstairs to think about some breakfast. Mom and Dad were standing near the elevator talking about something I couldn't quite make out. I dismissed it as I probably didn't want to know anyway.
Just as I was turning away to head into the kitchen I heard the elevator door open and ding. "What the?" and I turned around. Oh my Lord.. really?!
Ivy instantly started screaming. It was Norman Reedus.. IN OUR ELEVATOR! My parents must have pulled some strings. Wow, what a morning already! Ivy went running into the elevator.
Our moments with Norman didn't last too, too long. Ivy was yet again said when he left .. but we had a great visit! The girls played a little on the luggage cart and I tried to make us some breakfast.
We had just finished breakfast when Mom and Dad mentioned to me that they'd like to take us over to Staten Island. They had been subletting an old apartment they had. The last tenants they had, had been years ago and it was time to just let the property go. They held on to it for sentimental reasons, I suppose. They moved out of that apartment just before I was born. I've only seen a few pictures of it here and there. So, this was a total surprise for us and I was really quite excited to see it!
We left the apartment and Mom had rented and SUV for the day because she knew she had some stuff to take back with us and we may have to haul some bigger items away. We needed to deep clean this old apartment.
We ended up going over the Brooklyn Bridge!
We pulled up in front of the building. It looked old, for sure. I'd never really been in the city much - so this was a bit new to me, reall the whole trip was!
We went into the building. While we walked up what felt like 50 flights of stairs Mom was telling us about all of he rold memories.. and about walking up these stairs when she was pregnant with me!
We -finally- made it to the apartment and they unlocked the door. We headed in to start the clean up job. Mom said we needed to take down some old things, roll up the rugs and take apart the old bed and put it down in the dumpster. Let the cleaning begin!
After we got everything out and the bed taken apart we found a little box tucked away in a corner. Mom pulled the box out. It must have been left behind in the big move - as they were moving out when they were pregnant with me and I guess it just got left behind in all of the hurry. It was a photo album of when Mom and Dad were first dating, and some old drawings that Dad had done. It was really neat to be able to go through all of this and see what they were like when they were younger.
Mom and Dad shed a few little emotional sighs as we packed up everything and locked the door behind us. It was time to get back to the apartment. They had finally closed that chapter of their lives.. I am sure that was a hard pill to swallow, leaving it all behind them.
We had a long tiring day of cleaning and emotions. We finally made it back to the apartment and settled down on the couch for some relaxation.
This is a day I'll not soon forget, thanks to my parents. It's been a joy to be able to look back into a part of their lives.
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