Essay
2015, it was a warm night in August. I had just arrived at the 13th Street dorms in one of those overpriced cabs that wave you down right when you exit JFK. On my way over the Williamsburg Bridge, I saw the city skyline and I felt grown up and excited. The air was sticky when I pulled my duffel out of the trunk and lugged it up the stoop. A student at the entrance invited me upstairs. My room was a double at the end of the hall, about a hundred fifty square feet, with grey laminate floor, a bunk bed, fluorescent lights, and thick pipes sprawled across the ceiling. From outside the window I heard the quiet sound of a saxophone.
I would fly to Munich twice a year. Always in between semesters, once in the summer and once in the winter. I didn't have a worry in the world. Of course I sometimes missed home, but it was the same kind of missing you might feel when on vacation for a few weeks; You always know you'll be back. To be clear, if it wasn't for school I wouldn't have been there, but I loved living in the city. Visiting Germany felt like returning from an expedition, sharing stories, getting matters in order, spending time with family and friends, then leaving again without hesitation for another semester. When people asked me if I want to stay in the US after school, I would say that I didn't know, fifty-fifty, I really had no idea. I felt unbound and hopeful, and nothing seemed to carry any weight.
I think my parents felt differently. Especially my dad. Even though I'm sure it was him who instilled in me an almost unshakable belief in things turning out well. On a family trip to Iceland, where I planned for too much camping, it was him who walked my hesitant mom and sister into an unattended hotel, grabbed a room key from the reception, and wrote a note to the owner informing them that they had new guests and that they would be paying in the morning. But when my parents heard me talking excitedly about class or about dates or really anything related to NY, their response often seemed to carry a somber undercurrent. They didn't see me as just being away for school, they saw me building a life away from theirs.
One winter, during the first years I was gone, I sat in the car with my dad, driving through Munich, talking about this and that and being away from home and being back for the holidays. In his youth, he also itched to leave, he said. But as the years passed, he realized how much Munich had to offer and how attached he felt after all. At that moment, I did not yet miss it. But when I responded, the words didn't sound as certain as I expected them to.
After I finished university, during the pandemic, Giulia stayed with us for six months in Germany. It was a great time, my parents loved her. We would walk Nanook together, cook for each other, my dad even convinced her to go mushroom picking with him, which the rest of us usually tried to avoid. One evening, we were all sitting on the living room sofa, watching TV. I had asked Giulia to marry me earlier that day. When I told my parents, there was silence. Then accusations, then sadness. Giulia left to go upstairs. Four years of sharing stories that felt inconsequential to me but ominous to my parents had culminated in this moment. My dad's subtle past attempts at advocating for Munich led to this last chance to make his opinion unmistakably clear and to prevent me from leaving for good. I didn't intend for marriage to herald my departure, but for the first time, I felt a pit in my stomach.
October 2022, two years later, I had my green-card in hand, a job in Brooklyn, and a rent stabilized apartment with Giulia. For the first time, I felt like I had my life together. And for the first time, I was in NY without really needing to be there. While waiting for my green-card, Giulia and I traveled around, meeting up in Germany, Argentina, or various places in the US. Now, we've settled, at least temporarily.
Four months later, my dad called to tell me that Nanook had collapsed in the hallway. She had a tumor and needed to be euthanized. My mom was at the clinic with her, saying goodbyes. I wept across the street from Tony's Auto Repair.
One month later, my dad was admitted to the hospital. He had been vomiting daily and feeling abdominal pain for the last 6 months. He threw up on the physician's desk at the hepatologist's office. Doctors had difficulties finding out what was wrong and had already removed his spleen, which brought no improvement and a major surgery to recover from. Again on the phone with him, I wept. This time sitting on our sofa in the little room, listening to him talk to the nurse. Around Christmas, I had been with him, weak, resting in the living room. But most of the time, I had only been there on video. My dad was miserable, but I refused to consider that the situation was dire. I flew to Germany — out of schedule — on my mother's advice, two weeks before he died.
When I talk to childhood friends, I can't relate to their daily life, because I am not part of it. I hate that we have to "check in" to retain at least a vague understanding of what our lives are like. I am embarrassed for not remembering when one of my oldest friends will complete his PHD, so I stopped asking. I can just about keep up with my sister. But even there, I miss out. Three days ago was her 30th birthday. We talked on the phone and I left a gift for her the last time I was there. But tonight she is celebrating with a lovely group of people, family, current friends, old friends, shared friends, and aside from my face on a projector, I'm not there.
There is an unassuming bus stop on our street, it's just a sign with a schedule on it. For a long time I didn't even know it was there. But over the last few years I've become a fascinated spectator. The bus arrives every forty minutes. It's small and barely anyone rides it. Our street is long and forested, and at night you can see the bus turn the corner at the far end, brightly illuminated, trundling towards you. Eventually it passes, you nod at the driver, and the bus disappears. Last winter I finally rode it, with my sister, for no reason at all. We just got on. Forty minutes later we got off at the same stop.