Emily and Ann

Joan and I have been friends forever.  That’s not quite accurate though; we met in kindergarten, when she was 6 and I was 5.  I don’t think she will mind my telling you she is a year older.  It really doesn’t matter at this point of our lives.  Perhaps in a sense, however, it does because Joan did everything (and I mean everything) before I did, and always did it better.  Still I always loved her, and forever will.

There was just one brief interruption in our friendship, and that was the year I was 16 and Joan was 17.  Of course, it was about a member of the opposite sex, but we both got over that when we forgot him and went on to meet other heroes.

This story is more about our Mothers, however.  Joan and I shared many, many things.  One of the most important was that our Mothers were the two most beautiful women not only on the block (58th Street) but in the entire neighborhood.

Emily and Ann were friends, but women in those days didn’t lunch or have coffee together.  There was neither time nor money for such extravagances.  Instead they would meet on the stoop when carrying the bundles of food for their families or perhaps in the hallway where they could share a moment of honesty; a husband out of work, illness in the family.  That was what friendship meant in those years.

Seemingly, they didn’t have that much in common.  Mom was born and spent most of her life in the “neighborhood,” known to outsiders and poets as “Hells Kitchen.”  Although we never thought of it in that category.  Emily came over from Ireland in her late teens with her sister and brother and met Joan’s Dad shortly thereafter.

Mom was the extrovert; Emily less opinionated.  I never heard them exchange a cross word, and their friendship was a truly private one, unlike Joan’s and mine.

If they had opinions about their daughters, I never heard it expressed.  I do know that both Joan and I always yearned to be as beautiful as our Mothers.  I don’t believe either one of us quite achieved that.  Possibly Joan did, but she would know more about that than I.

During the war years, most of the women on the block would leave late in the afternoon to clean the nearby office buildings.  Emily and Ann, however, departed early in the morning and walked in the opposite direction towards 11th Avenue to work in the warehouse of F.A.O. Schwartz.  Their two daughters were too old to enjoy the perks of their employment, slightly used or battered toys, but both their younger children did.

Neither Joan’s parents nor mine dined out, nor did they spend time in each other’s homes.  Rather they would meet on the street corner or perhaps in the hallway.  They immediately knw if either family had trouble, illness or any type of crisis, and were always prepared to give any necessary help or advice.  As the years passed, and both families’ nests emptied, I believe the friendship between the two women became stronger.

It was during one of my brief visits to New York after marriage, when I realized how deeply Mom had loved her friend Emily.  I was in the apartment when a neighbor knocked on the door to inform my parents of Emily’s sudden and tragic death from an undiagnosed blood clot.  My Mother was inconsolable and could not stop sobbing.  I doubt if she ever again had a close friend after Emily left this world.

Joan and I always keep in close contact, via email and phone calls, and recently we spoke about hair color, a mundane subject indeed.  She remains a blonde, and I, a brunette, due to the expertise of colorists in Vermont and New York.But as we did, I know we both remembered our beautiful Mothers and the standard they set during a difficult economy in a controversial neighborhood, and reflected on how blessed we were to have had the two most beautiful Mothers on the block.