Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 41

“I’ve never seen the man read a book in his entire life. One...

“I’ve never seen the man read a book in his entire life. One time I saw his high school report card, and the only class he got an ‘A’ in was gym. His parents never had any money. So right after school he got a job stocking produce at a local food market. The owners realized that he had a knack for numbers, so they promoted him to manager at the age of twenty. He met my mother at the store. They got married. And not long afterward I came along. For as long as I can remember, the store has been a huge part of his life. He worked six days a week. He saved enough money to buy out the other owners. But it was never an obsession or anything. Whenever he was home with us, he was fully present. His family was his sweet spot. He never needed to hang out with his buddies. He was madly in love with my mom. And his idea of a good time was spending time with his kids. I used to think that dad was just a ‘family man.’ But as I got older, I realized that his ‘family’ extended to the folks who worked for him. Nobody ever leaves our store. We have fifteen managers, and the newest one started ten years ago. Our employees stick around because my dad has always taken care of them. He has their back, through divorces, parenting issues, health problems. One of our managers has a brain condition, and my dad’s the one who drives him to the appointments. Sometimes he’s too generous. He’s been burned before. But he kinda doesn’t care. He just keeps pushing in all his chips for other people. The man has a handwritten note from Mother Teresa because of all the food he’s given away. If you came into the store today, you’d find him stocking produce, just like he was doing when he was eighteen. He loves to tell people that he works for his children, and that we can fire him at any time. Everyone thinks he’s joking. But he’s not. On the day my dad got full ownership of the store, he signed over everything to his four kids. I was in the room when it happened. His lawyers and accountants tried to talk him out of it. They told him: ‘You’re giving away everything. You’ll never be able to stop working.’ And he replied: ‘I was poor when I started this thing. And that’s how I plan on leaving.’”

“I was eleven years old at the time. A new law passed allowing...

“I was eleven years old at the time. A new law passed allowing members of the same household to migrate to America. So we all went together, my aunts, uncles, cousins, and great-grandmother. Only my mother stayed behind. She had just remarried, and couldn’t leave my newborn brother. At the airport she was inconsolable, but she knew it was for the best. We left Havana in the middle of a twelve hour power outage. And when we landed in Miami, there was a sea of lights in every direction. It was clear why my mother had wanted me to go. In Miami our entire family moved into a two bedroom house. That first night I shared the pull-out sofa with my great grandmother Mami. Little did I know that we’d be sharing that couch for several years. Mami was a tough lady. She had to be, because she grew up in Cuba during the thirties. She snored like a growling cat. And she never asked about my feelings. But if she felt me crying on the other side of the bed, she’d roll over and put her hand on my shoulder. Those first few years were tough. I went straight to middle school. I couldn’t speak English. Every night I’d call my mother back in Cuba, and we’d both cry on the phone. During this time Mami became my best friend. She taught me how to shave. I’d tell her about my crushes. And she’d always tell me that one day I’d be wearing a suit. Mami had worked in a factory since the age of twelve. So that was success to her wearing a suit. No matter how close we got, she was always careful to remind me of how hard it was for my mother. One night we were watching one of her soap operas, and the story made her emotional. She turned to me and said: ‘You’re my son.’ Then she paused, and said: ‘Never forget the sacrifice your mother has made.’ Mami died three years ago. But she lived to see me graduate high school. And community college. And she was still alive when I got my first job. It was a job at a bank, and I wore a suit. It was a cheap suit from JCPenney, but it was a suit. On my first day I took a picture and sent it to Mami. Then I called her, and she was crying on the phone. It took her awhile to speak. But the first thing she said was: ‘I know how proud your mother is right now.’”

“I have two sons with the same condition. But Connolly had the...

“I have two sons with the same condition. But Connolly had the toughest road, because he’s the oldest. And he had to figure everything out himself. I think it was around 4th grade when kids started calling him ‘Baldy’ on the playground. Some days he’d come home crying and say things like: ‘‘I miss my hair.’ That’s when the mama bear would come out. I wanted to fix the problem so badly. I knew a couple of the kids who were responsible, so I wanted to go to his school and speak to them. Never in a punitive way, but just to give them some information. But every time I offered, Connolly would tell me that it wasn’t necessary. He’s always been so self-assured, so he’d promise me that he was OK. His mind changed on the day when he wasn’t picked for a team at recess. He’s one of the most athletic kids in his class, so he knew it was for other reasons.  And on the way home from school, he told me: ‘I’m ready for you to come in now.’ We worked together to make a presentation. There were four different classes in his fourth grade, and we gave a speech to each of them. We stood up there together. I spoke first because I wanted to get out a few key pieces of information: ‘Alopecia is an autoimmune disease where your body rejects your hair. It’s not cancer. And it’s not contagious.’ But after that we’d open it up to questions, and that’s when Connolly took over. He’s such an outgoing kid. He started calling on all his friends. And wouldn’t you know—the kids who had picked on him were the ones raising their hands the highest. After that day, all the negative comments stopped. He finished elementary school without an issue, and he’s moving on to middle school with a strong group of advocates. My main worry now is his younger brother Damon, who just started kindergarten. He’s a bit more reserved than Connolly. He’s so sensitive and tender in that little boy way. And one day he came home crying because one of the kids had called him ‘Baldy.’ Connolly walked over, put his arm around Damon, and said: ‘Don’t worry, you’re just dealing with people who don’t understand.’ Then he turned to me and said: ‘I think it’s time we all gave an alopecia talk to Damon’s class.’”

“Grandma once broke up a knife fight in the neighborhood. She...

“Grandma once broke up a knife fight in the neighborhood. She was quite proud of that. She kept the knife in a drawer as a trophy, and would tell the story to anyone who’d listen. Grandma was also very Italian. And very Catholic. She loved watching mass on the television, rosary in hand. And she loved the lottery. Big, big fan of the lottery. She was always on the lookout for numbers to play. Inspiration could come from anywhere: license plates, street numbers, radio stations. Then every night she’d watch the numbers roll out on Channel 8. But she hardly ever won. She used to split her winnings between her grandchildren, and it was never much. A couple bucks here and there. I remember getting $10 one time. Grandma was 89 when she passed away. On the day that she died I found a penny wedged into the sole of my shoe. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. But then I start finding pennies everywhere. But they’re pennies, right? They’re supposed to be everywhere, so maybe I was just grasping for signs. My academic advisor knew I was feeling sad, so she suggested that I study abroad. Of course I wanted to go to Italy, but even with scholarships it was like $10,000 more than regular tuition- so I didn’t even want to ask my parents. Fast forward a few months to Grandma’s birthday, when my family forces me to go to a remembrance mass. I’m not super religious so I’m sitting there the whole time thinking: ‘This is such bullshit.’ But then that night I had the craziest dream. I’m at a Cumberland Farms gas station near my house, scratching off a lottery ticket, and suddenly I start laughing because I won a bunch of money. The next day I text my friends that we’ve got to buy a lottery ticket. And when I met up with my friend Cassie after work that night, we headed straight to Cumberland Farms. I bought one lotto ticket. $5 Diamonds. I’d barely ever played before, and I’d certainly never bought a $5 scratch off. As soon as we got back to the car, I grabbed a penny and started scratching. Beyonce’s ‘Halo’ was playing on the radio. When I get to the third row of numbers, BAM. I had a match. $10,000. Enough to cover one whole semester in Florence.”

“I’d never had a serious boyfriend before. I certainly wasn’t...

“I’d never had a serious boyfriend before. I certainly wasn’t engaged. But when Dad started to get really sick, we decided to have a daddy-daughter dance. We did it during my cousin’s wedding. My dad chose the song: ‘If I Didn’t Have You,’ by Amanda Marshall. When he passed away I engraved my favorite lyric from the song onto a necklace, along with a copy of his thumbprint. Dad had been my very best friend, and after his death I couldn’t get out of bed for months. Everyone kept promising that things would get better, but I felt completely lost. I think the travelling began as a way to find myself again. I went to Ireland, and Norway, and Jamaica. Then in 2018 I took a trip to Cambodia to visit a friend who was teaching there, and that’s when I discovered the green dress. It was in a small shop. And it seemed like a perfect bridesmaid’s dress for an upcoming wedding. Since I didn’t have any cash on me, I took a photo of the dress, and I texted it to my friend once I got home to Canada. Unfortunately it was a wrong number. The message got sent to a completely random guy. His name was Sean. He was on a work visa from Scotland. And we ended up having a funny little back-and forth. The girls at my office were egging me on, so we kept up our conversation for several days. We seemed to have a lot in common, so eventually we decided to meet at Starbucks. And to be honest I wanted it to work. My entire life people had been assuring me that it would be effortless when I met ‘The One.’ And what could be more effortless than a wrong number? There was instant chemistry between us. We took a walk after our coffee, and ended up spending three hours together. We went on several more dates over the next few months. Sean met all my friends and family, and all of them kept saying the same thing: ‘He is so much like your father.’ We’ve been together for two years now. And not only have I grown to love him, but Sean has taught me how to love myself. Last month we were finally married. Sean wore a kilt. And I wore the green dress, along with the necklace with my father’s thumbprint. On the back were the lyrics of our song, only now the words had new meaning: ‘This Love Is a Gift.’”

(2/2) “Kathy and Tom kept their promises. They brought Aden over...

(2/2) “Kathy and Tom kept their promises. They brought Aden over to meet my friends. They came to my graduation. They even came over before prom when we dressed up and posed for pictures. In the fall I went off to college, and I wasn’t very involved after that. I tried to see Aden a couple times a year. But I was still a child myself, and I didn’t feel like there was much I could contribute. I needed more time. I needed more space. But Kathy always held a spot for me. Even when I cancelled plans, there wasn’t an ounce of shame. Instead she’d go out of her way to show concern. She’d send text after text: ‘You’re beautiful. You’re good enough. I love you.’ I was made to feel that if I disappeared for twenty years, the door would still be open for me when I came back. It made me trust her so much. And she trusted me as well. We’d confide in each other. Kathy and Tom didn’t have a perfect marriage. It seemed perfect in their adoption profile of course, but they were going through messed up stuff like everyone else. And she never tried to hide that from me. She never needed to seem perfect. And by being so open with her flaws, it allowed me to be more comfortable with my own. Kathy raised our son into the strongest, most intelligent, most humble young man. But she helped raise me too. So much of my self-worth is because of her. I now have three children of my own, and motherhood has caused a lot of emotions to surface. I’ve been confronting painful things that I buried long ago: all the sadness, and all the grief, for what I’d given up with Aden. But I’m so lucky, because I can talk with Kathy about it. We can sit down together, and I can tell her that I sometimes regret the adoption. It’s not that I don’t love her. And I’m not saying that it wasn’t right, I’m only saying that I sometimes regret it. I’m always so careful with my words, because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But Kathy never gets defensive. She never makes it about her. She never says: ‘If you hadn’t made the decision, I wouldn’t have my son.’ She mainly just listens. And then she tells me how thankful she is. Not for what I gave her. Not for the baby. She says: ‘Missy, I’m so thankful for you.’”

(½) “I found out I was pregnant the day before my senior...

(½) “I found out I was pregnant the day before my senior year, and my parents took me to an adoption lawyer so that we could learn about the process. She showed us a box full of folders and pictures from families hoping to adopt. I spent months looking through family profiles, but nothing felt right. I don’t even know what I was looking for. Maybe I was looking for myself in ten years, someone who could raise my son like I wished I could. The one thing I knew was that I wanted an open adoption. I wanted to be part of my son’s life. But those arrangements weren’t common back then. Families would offer to send pictures, but not much more. And I don’t blame them for wanting to feel like their child belonged to them. But sometimes it felt like the focus was only on the baby. I was doing this huge number on myself emotionally, and I was expected to fall in line. But Kathy and Tom weren’t like that at all. When they came to our house, it was a completely different energy. Kathy kept saying: ‘Thank you so much for considering us. She explained that she’d miscarried many times. She didn’t try to negotiate. It was actually the opposite, she kept adding to my requests. When I asked if I’d be able to come over, she said: ‘I’d love for you to babysit.’ When I asked if I could see my son on his birthday, she said: ‘I was thinking family dinners.’ It was always: ‘Whatever makes you comfortable,’ and for the first time I felt seen. I called Kathy the next day and asked her if she’d adopt my baby. Over the next several weeks, we spent a lot of time together. We talked about the baby some, but it was mainly about me: my worries, my plans, my hopes. Aden arrived a month early, and Kathy handled the delivery with such grace. The entire time she was focused on my comfort level, and where I was emotionally. As soon as Aden was born, and they placed him on my chest, I said: ‘Please give him to his mom.’ Kathy let me buckle him in the car seat before they drove away. And I gave him a kiss, and it hurt so much. But I also felt so much relief. Then I felt immense guilt for feeling relief. Had I really done this for my child? Or had I done it to get myself off the hook?”

“I’ve blacked a lot of it out. But I do remember that recess was...

“I’ve blacked a lot of it out. But I do remember that recess was a nightmare for me. My mom told me later that she would sometimes hide in the bushes, and when she saw me sitting by myself, she’d start crying. The diagnosis was ‘selective mutism.’ I’d get so anxious around people that I physically couldn’t speak. I’d get a rock in my throat, and it would feel like that moment right before you faint, when everything sounds so far away. It could be lonely at school. I was the only student with a full-time aide. I was the only one who held up a sign when the teacher called attendance. It doesn’t feel good to be different. But my parents did everything they could to minimize that feeling. Every night before I went to sleep, my mother would say: ‘You’re a terrific kid, and I love being your Mommy.’ When my school had a Halloween parade, she knew I’d be too anxious to do it alone. So she dressed up as Minnie Mouse and marched right alongside me. She was always very attentive to my emotions. But she was also a lawyer so she made sure that my rights were being respected. She knew that the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act promised a ‘free appropriate public education.’ And that’s exactly what she wanted for me. She once shut down my entire elementary school for an in-service day, and the entire faculty was taught to ask me ‘yes or no’ questions so that I could nod in reply. She wanted me in a mainstream classroom, having mainstream experiences. So that I would never be left behind. And by the time I hit 5th grade, I was able to speak. It didn’t happen all at once. But I grew more and more confident. I got better at making friends. I joined the debate team in high school. Recently I graduated from Cornell and completed my senior thesis on disability rights, which I defended verbally. All of this was possible because of my mother. She was beside me the entire time. I took the LSAT in January, and even though the test was five hours long, my mom waited in the lobby. She gave me the biggest hug when I walked out. When I asked her why she didn’t leave, she said: ‘I don’t know. I just wanted to be here. In case you needed anything at all.’”

“They almost went home many times before I was born. They even...

“They almost went home many times before I was born. They even threw a goodbye party once. But they always changed their minds at the last minute, because they wanted a better life for their child. It hasn’t been easy for them in America. Back in Colombia my father worked at a bank, but here he cleaned houses. For the first four years of my life we lived in the attic of a large home. It was a big house, with a golden retriever. But nothing belonged to us. My parents took care of the children, and cleaned the house, and cooked the food. Eventually my mom found work as an accountant, and my father would stay home with me. I’m sure that he wished he could provide more materially, because Hispanic culture is patriarchal. But he poured all his time into me. We’d go to the library, and take long walks, and go bike riding. He especially loved music. One of the things we bonded over was a children’s album by Tish Hinojosa, a famous Tex-Mex singer. My father copied it from a CD he’d gotten at the library, and we memorized all the songs. The lyrics were a mix of English and Spanish, which Dad loved because he was trying to teach me to be bilingual. Our dream was to see her perform. But we didn’t have money to travel, and she never seemed to have a concert near us. Recently I’ve reached the age that my parents were when they left Colombia. But instead of cleaning houses, I’m working on my Masters degree. I’ve always admired their sacrifice, but now more than ever I can imagine the difficulty of being in their shoes. A couple years ago I was feeling nostalgic, so I looked up Tish Hinojosa to see what she was up to now. I discovered she was performing in a small town outside of Pittsburgh. It was an intimate show at an old mansion, so I bought us tickets as a Father’s Day gift. I put them in an envelope, with a letter.  And I tried to keep it a secret. I just told him that there was a town I wanted to explore. But I think that during our road trip he could sense my excitement. I have no idea how he figured it out. We hadn’t spoken about her in over ten years. But when we were only thirty minutes away, he turned to me with the biggest smile on his face, and said: ‘Tish?’”

WE WILL REBUILD HER. At 5 AM this morning I dropped Stephanie...

WE WILL REBUILD HER. At 5 AM this morning I dropped Stephanie off at the prestigious Hospital for Special Surgery. A few hours later she went under anesthesia for a complete hip replacement. She was nervous but in good spirits. I am happy to report that I have just gotten off the phone with Dr. Peter Sculco, who in addition to being one of the best surgeons in his field, is also ‘pretty hot’,  according to Stephanie. Dr. Sculco is happy to report that the surgery ‘went great.’ Her pain should be greatly relieved, and he expects her to be walking again soon. Stephanie had been unable to stand for several months. And it had gotten to the point where she couldn’t roll over a crack in the sidewalk without screaming in pain. So the situation was critical. Since Stephanie had no insurance, this intervention was made entirely possible through your contributions. You have bought her another chance at life. Stephanie wanted me to say that she loves you all, and that as soon as she gets home, she is going to ‘burn a white candle’ in your honor.