I'm the youngest first cousin on both my mother and father's side, and I'm old, so the inevitable is that my Boomer cousins more frequently leave this mortal coil. Both my parents were Greatest Generation types, and their kids Boomers, raging from a 1943 birth (my cousin Arlyne, now gone years) to me, in 1961.
Dad was one of 3, and so fewer cousins there. Anne was the oldest, who died at 99 in, I think, 2015, then my Dad, and the youngest, Uncle Harry. Harry died in his 40s, and his 2 sons Russ and Gary became Smiths, when adopted by my Aunt Elayne's second husband Ben. My Dad's 3 of us remain. And Aunt Anne had a single son, Steve, who turned 74 in March. Alas, he had seen his final Independence Day last year -- my sister Sue shared the news that Steve died yesterday morning.
He was an odd duck. Today we all know he's on the autism spectrum, but back in the day there was never such a diagnosis. Rather, he was just shy, and strange, and not social, though he did get a college degree and work for years as an accountant.
My years as a boy, when we would visit Jackson Heights and the building my grandmother lived one floor below Steven and his parents Anne and Jordan, were not sunny memories. Steve was 9 years older than I, but always seemed socially younger -- even as a late teen more concerned with model airplanes and HAM radio than talking to us.
His father Jordan, a Caspar Milquetoast if ever there was one in our family, repaired vending machines, and was so quiet and humble, he never shared his part in history. One day, on a visit, he was showing some WW II pix, and sure enough, there he was on an island in front of a plane, with his fellow mechanics. The island was Tinian, and the plane the Enola Gay! My Dad was shocked. "Jordan -- you were part of the Hiroshima Mission?!!!" He was, but had never mentioned it.
Poor Jordan dropped dead of a heart attack on Miami Beach, while attending a convention for his company. I was 8 and I recall Anne calling Dad and asking him to come over when she broke the news to Steve -- Dad said the 17 year old took the news terribly. An early memory is Jordan's funeral -- his Knights of Pythias provided service had an officiant who kept calling him "Gordon" with Anne loudly and angrily correcting him. Yep -- early "Curb" in my family.
Anyway, Anne and Steve lived together in their co-op the rest of Anne's life. When she died, of pneumonia, Steve called to ask me if we could sue the hospital. I said "Steve -- she was 99." He replied, in his high pitched, Queens accented voice, "Well she COULD have made 100!"
We kept in touch over the years, but weren't close. He would come to Miami for cruises, and sometimes I would see him. We were pretty sure he wasn't gay, but never dated that we knew. This led to my having an inspiration -- maybe my sister of another mister was right for him! Mirta was single, and struggling a bit financially -- her sons were grown. I romanticized maybe the Cubana and strange Jewish bachelor were besheret.
So I fetched him at the cruise port, and Mirta, Wifey, Steve, and I spend one of the most uncomfortable 7 hours ever. We went to Tropical Chinese. Steve had ZERO interest in Mirta, and soon she felt the same way. We went back to our house. I suggested coffee. "I don't DRINK coffee," said Steve. Tea? "No -- how about ice cream?" So we went to Wall's, then Matheson Hammock to kill time. I tried to talk with Steve -- he just wanted to complain about how Trump had reclaimed his model airplane runway for a new golf course, and the gay guys in his co-op harassed him about taking down his HAM antenna.
Finally, it was time to leave for MIA. On the way, he called Delta -- it appeared his flight was canceled. We were horrified -- zero chance I was bringing him back to my house for the night, I assured him Delta would put him up at a hotel. Thankfully the flight went on, and after we dropped him Wifey and Mirta asked what the hell I was thinking, attempting that love connection. It went down as a Top 5 dumbest idea I ever had.
Anyway, when D2 and Jonathan lived in NYC, I called Steven and Ubered to Queens to meet him at his favored cheap Chinese place in a strip center near LGA. He dropped me at the terminal, and I asked him if he wished me to call him more often -- he never called me unless he wanted free legal advice (several car wrecks, all his fault, and the continuing harassment from the gays in his building who clearly wanted the weird old Jewish guy out). He said he would.
All during Covid, I called him every few months and struggled through our talks, typically as I walked the 'hood in anxiety about whether the Plague would take our first born grandson.
His conversations were always complaints about how much things cost, and how he had been taught by Anne not to give away money or let people rip him off. Once, he complained that Carnival wanted to charge him an extra few hundred dollars for a balcony room. I suggested maybe he pay -- he had plenty of money, and no one to care for but himself -- live a little. He reacted as if I suggested he give up an organ.
Which he did. He was diabetic and got a kidney transplant about 4 years ago. I thought they stopped giving organs to 70 year olds, but apparently the criteria changed to medical need alone. He never really fully recovered -- still needed dialysis, I think, and refused to pay for it on cruise ships, so only took short cruises.
But last year he did travel to LA to see the sights -- like the docked Queen Mary, which he reported was a lousy hotel.
We last spoke a few months ago, when he wanted me to call his auto carrier and tell them to NOT settle with 2 claimants he rear-ended and were claiming serious injury. I took the time to explain that it was a good thing his company settled, and his premiums would increase based on his fault, anyway.
My sister Sue kept in closer touch with him -- she spoke to him just last week after he got out of the hospital for an infection. She also met , on the phone, a cousin from Jordan's side, a fellow named Stewart who was closer -- he traveled to Queens to help Steve out after hospitalizations. Stewart was the one who told Sue Steve died.
Sue said she was thinking of sending flowers. I reminded her we were all Jews and we didn't send flowers -- food, for a shiva, yes, or a charitable contribution. I can't imagine anyone is sitting shiva -- probably just an Eleanor Rigby-like funeral in New Jersey -- with a Rabbi instead of Father McKenzie...
Early this am, Wifey and I shared insomnia, and talked about Cousin Steve. He never hurt anyone. He lived a quiet life -- friends, if you could call them that, in the HAM radio community and Model Planes. He DID travel. He loved driving to my old town on LI, to visit Kwong Ming, the locally famous Chinese place -- and he would send me pics of him dining alone at a table there -- I guess he had some warm memories of being with my family on LI.
My Dad used to joke that once Anne died, he would "come out of his shell," get silk shirts and coke spoons and acquire a persona like Budd Love in Jerry Lewis's "Nutty Professor" movie. Never happened -- just Dad's absurdist humor, which he passed down to me.
I said a prayer to the Big Man -- for Steven's soul to be comforted, and reunited with the souls of Anne and Jordan -- his people, as the saying goes.
Rest in peace, my first cousin Steven Greenbaum.
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