The stories that fill the holes in our lives

The importance of sharing the stories that matter to you

Earlier this week, my mom died. For a while we had been watching her slowly slip away, succumbing to dementia and cancer. Week by week, she was less able to express the magic of who she was. Today I want to share with you a little story of where her spark came from in the early days of her life.

My mom grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1940s and 50s. This is the street she grew up on, a photo of it from 1980:

Photo by Brian Rose

When you first glance at it, I imagine you may be looking at the dilapidated buildings, or the empty lots filled with rubble. But I would like for you to focus on something that is not in the photo — please pay attention to the large gap between the buildings in the center of the image. That hole where a building once stood. Where a universe once existed. Where now only stories remain.

On this street, one block away, was the building my mother grew up in. Below is a photo of her block from the early 1980s, decades after she left. The entire south side of the street (seen here) was in rubble, as was most of the north side (where her building was.)

Photo by Peter Bennett

Now, we are going to time travel once again. Here is her building in 1940, five years before she was born, I highlighted it in green:

If you zoom in, you can see that there is a “To Let” sign on her building, for which a modern translation would be: “apartment for rent.” I wonder if that is the apartment that my grandparents ended up renting. There were 20 apartments in the building, so it’s a 5% chance, right?

My mom grew up in a tenement apartment, with her sharing a single bedroom with her sister and their parents. The bathroom was in the building’s hallway, not within her apartment, and the bathtub was in the kitchen. They only had three rooms, indicating a very small amount of space, which is why I think so much of her life during that time was experienced in the streets of New York City.

Here she is in a stroller in front of her building:

Then, a year or two later, riding her tricycle, the street teeming with life:

Here she is marveling at a poster advertising the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, likely on the avenue right around the corner from her home:

Here she is just sitting on the sidewalk where so much time was spent with family and friends:

Her father worked a couple blocks south, and here she is visiting him at the bakery he worked at his entire adult life:

She often visited her grandparents who lived several more blocks south. Here she is in front of their building, three generations of women in her family, as well as my great grandfather:

Here she is celebrating a birthday with friends (third from left):

I sometimes think of the holes in our lives that are left when someone we love moves on. Where these magical people once filled our days with special moments, experiences, and connections, there is now something missing.

What replaces these holes are oftentimes the stories we remember, and the stories we tell. Sometimes this keeps memories alive, and other times it keeps a relationship going even after someone is gone.

Many of these stories are lost to time. Which is perhaps one of the reasons I spend my days with writers — those who tell stories, bringing them into the future.

When you look again at the image of the dilapidated block from 1980 that I started this essay with, what do you see now?

Photo by Brian Rose

It’s a moment in time, but one filled with stories from decades before, and decades since. That hole between the buildings was once a thriving community of people’s homes.

What I am sharing here in these images are bookends of my mom's life. A glimpse at her first days, and a glimpse at her final days. In between was a life filled with moments, experiences, relationships, and stories. Here is a photo of me with mom in early November. When I held out my phone to take a selfie of us, she saw us on the screen and was overjoyed, saying, “Look! It’s me and you!”

Please keep Barbara Blank in your thoughts this week. A little girl from the Lower East Side who dreamed, lived, and is loved.

As always, thank you for being here with me.
-Dan