We’ve been affected by hurricanes twice – by Irene in 2011 and by Sandy a year later. Sandy caused us the most disruption – our Manhattan apartment building is near the East River and the storm caused it to overrun the adjacent FDR Drive and our street, East End Ave, and flood our building’s basement. Then the force of the surge pulled an oil tank from the basement wall that crashed on the concrete floor. The toxic mix of raw sewage and oil made the building unsafe, and in addition we lost power, phone and elevator service, as well as cooking gas, and we were all evacuated for several weeks. (See Cooking with Gas).
Sandy wreaked havoc where she made landfall, and every night we all got a meteorological education on the news. Hurricanes, we learned, are usually unaccompanied by lightning.
But Hurricane Irene was an exception that proved the rule. In the early morning of August 28, 2011 we were asleep in our Connecticut country house when a terrifyingly loud crash woke us and sent the cat scurrying under the bed.
From our bedroom window we looked down at the deck and saw that lightning had split the trunk of a large tree a few yards from the house. It fell across the deck hitting the railing and bringing it down.
It happened our house had the dubious distinction of being the only one in our condo community to have suffered Irene’s wrath, but we thanked our lucky stars the damage hadn’t been more than a broken deck railing.
By the way, our old scaredy cat stayed under the bed until suppertime.
When I was growing up my parents had a housekeeper named Odessa. She was a tall and stately-looking Black woman, and I adored her.
In the mornings before my mother left for work Odessa arrived, made sure I finished my breakfast, and walked me the few blocks to school. And at 3:00 she’d be there to walk me home, and I’d regale her with all that happened at school that day.
Our Bronx house had three stories – my father’s medical office was on the first floor, and our living quarters were on the two floors above that included the finished attic where I slept. Between appointments my dad took a midday break and came upstairs for the lunch Odessa always had waiting for him
And Odessa cleaned home and office and laundered, and in my mind’s eye I still see her carrying a laundry basket down to the basement, bending a bit to accommodate her height as she descended those rickety steps. We had a washing machine down there, but no dryer, and Odessa would hang the wet laundry on two clotheslines my dad had strung from wall to wall. (See My Beloved Basement)
And days when I was sick and home from school it was Odessa who cared for me, and I remember her bringing trays of food and bowls of oatmeal or her homemade chicken soup up to my attic bedroom. And because I loved tomatoes she always cooked one in the soup.
Odessa was active in her Harlem church and one day she proudly told my parents that her congregation had taken the step uncommon for the time and appointed her – a woman – as deacon. She was to be ordained that Sunday and she invited us to the ceremony.
The sights and sounds at the Baptist service were quite different from those at our synagogue’s services, and I watched transfixed as Odessa, in her beautiful deacon’s robe, knelt in that sacred space for the laying on of hands.
And to my child’s sensibility I thought the beatific smile I saw on Odessa’s face was just for me.
