She was the daughter of immigrants from Germany. A
dancer at the Hippodrome Theater and painter of landscapes and still lives. He
came to the U.S. from Ireland as a
child. Grew up to be a stunt jockey (think diving horses off platforms in Atlantic City) and an
electrician. He became vice president of the International Alliance of Theatrical
and Stage Employees.
They adopted four children who were in no way related to
them, including my grandfather. His biological mother was a 14-year-old girl who
worked as a housekeeper; her parents were from Sweden
and Ireland.
The people who raised my grandfather also fostered other
kids, took in stray dogs. During the Great Depression, they kept a pot of soup
on the lawn for anyone who needed it.
And even though they died years before I was born, I learned
so much from those stories as a kid. That you
do what you can to help people. That art
in its various forms is important. That we are stronger together and have to fight for what’s right.
We had big family dinners at my grandparents’ house for all
the major holidays, but also just random Sundays throughout my childhood. The
grownups were talking politics at one of these dinners when I was in elementary
school. I asked what the difference was between Republicans and Democrats.
Someone (I can’t remember who) explained it this way: “Republicans are rich people.
Democrats are people like us.”
People like us: My grandpa followed in his father’s
footsteps, becoming an electrician for the likes of the Ed Sullivan Show and
CBS Evening News. He fought in the navy in World War II. Grandma, whose
mother was the daughter of Italian immigrants and whose father came to the U.S. from Italy, worked in factories her
whole adult life, from making bras and parts for spaceships to working an
assembly line for a pharmaceutical company.
People like us: My parents met working in a book warehouse.
He did two tours with the Air Force in Vietnam and had a degree to work as
a mechanic on airplanes. He destroyed his body working in warehouses well past
the age of retirement, being laid off from the last two companies when they
closed their warehouses due to overseas competition. Mom got so injured from her
days packing orders in warehouses that a government program paid for her to get
a two-year degree in psychology. She wanted to help people and got a job working with people with intellectual and behavioral disabilities, helping them hold down jobs and be independent. But then a man
slammed into the back of her car when she was driving me to school one morning
and afterward she was declared totally and permanently disabled. She supported
us on monthly social security checks and payments from a private disability
company, a benefit from that job. (I am quite familiar with disconnection and foreclosure notices
and know what it’s like to have nothing but ice cubes and wilted lettuce in the
fridge. But we never lost the house, and I know I’m lucky to never have lived in
a shelter or on the street.)
People like us: I’ve been working since I was 15 years-old.
Every job I’ve ever taken has had some component of community service at its
core. My first two years of college were completely subsidized by federal and
state grants because we had such a low household income. I was the first person
in my immediate family to get a bachelor’s degree, and I’m the only one with a
master’s degree. I pursued degrees in writing, because it’s the passion at the
core of my being, even though those degrees have done nothing to advance my
career, and I still have about 15 years of student loan payments ahead of me.
People like us: I recognize that I’m more fortunate than
many, less fortunate than some. When Mom got cancer, we were lucky she was
already on disability and had Medicare to pay 80% of those insane medical
bills. And when she died, we were even luckier that the health systems wrote
off the bad debt, that my sisters and I weren’t saddled with paying those remaining costs.
Mom left behind a house in need of some repair, a car, and a small life
insurance policy that wouldn’t even pay out enough to have her cremated. Dad
left even less behind when he died. But my grandparents managed to save a lot
through the union and left us enough that I was able to buy my own home less
than two months ago, that I have been able to visit Iceland three times in the past two
years. It’s also been enough to allow me to be very generous with my charitable
contributions for the past two years.
People like us: I have always believed that small acts of
kindness and goodness matter. That they make a difference. I want to live in a
world where everyone can feel safe to be who they are, where we help who we can when we can. I’ve
benefited from others’ generosity and hard work, and I will keep doing my best
to pay it forward.
