By Renee Baruch
It started because our mothers were best friends in the 1950s in Manhattan: two young German immigrants married to difficult men, with children roughly the same age.
My mother was Lilo, and her best friend was Bea. I have no idea how my mother and Bea met, but they were friends for as long as I can remember. Bea had two boys, one my age and one four years younger. The one my age was an unkind bully; the one four years younger was kind and bullied, and recognized the unkindness in his older brother and his father.
My mother died when I was 11 and Bea tried to be a surrogate mother to me as well as my three sisters. It was a lot. When my father remarried, his wife determined that Bea’s family, which had been so close to mine, and such a mainstay, was not socially worthy of our friendship. And so it withered and died, and I saw neither Bea nor the boys after I was 16.
The years rolled by, decade after decade without contact. Then, in 2007, my father decided to write history and authored (with a ghostwriter) an autobiography full of half-truths and innuendos. In order to clarify the circumstances of my mother’s death, I went to visit Bea in the assisted living facility where she then lived with her second husband in Florida.
It was lovely, but reminded me of all that I had lost. She clarified the circumstances of my mother’s death and confirmed what I knew to be the truth (from accounts of both my stepmother and my grandmother). Bea told me that her boys had both become lawyers in upstate New York — and something moved me to get in touch with the younger one, the kind one, Michael. But we didn’t meet again until my dog, Popccorn, was ready to be taken home from the breeder, who lived in Michael’s city. We had been talking sporadically by phone since he had informed me of his mother’s death a few years earlier. Now, we would visit.
He and his wife were wonderful. And Michael and I discovered many commonalities as adults. He also shed light on my familial relationships that were completely hidden from me as a child and adolescent. Michael later moved to Delaware and was an enormous support and comfort to me as I went through my own heartache during stays in Baltimore, Maryland, with a partner of many years who was dying of cancer. Michael made special trips to just walk with me and provide an understanding ear and welcoming shoulder. He and his wife were so kind that it made me believe I could live again when my ordeal ended … and theirs began.
But that’s another story with a happy ending.
And now, Michael and I are close — as close as siblings — closer than the siblings our parents gave us!
And that is almost the whole story.
Do you have a story about friendship you’d like to share? At least one of the friends (counting you) must be an Upper West Sider in this new occasional series, meaning we’ll post interesting stories as often as they come in. Send your stories to info@westsiderag.com with the subject line: Friends of the Upper West Side.
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Thank-you for this beautiful, hopeful story.
Great story!
thank you for sharing Renee!
Part II soon, PLEASE!
You wrote so well. Perhaps you’ll write your own memoir?? Thank you for sharing your uplifting story.
Thanks for sharing and i’m happy you were able to reconnect with Micheal. I just want to say I really love this paper. I like all of the very human neighborly stories on here. Like the lost wallet story etc. The upper west side really has a lot of wonderful people!
Nice story.