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Health & Fitness

Poor Souls

I don't believe Mom had an address book and certainly not a telephone list.  We didn't have a telephone in those days, but she definitely had a rota of "Poor Souls."

They came and went as the years passed on.  Some of them moved off the roster if their husbands found steady work, or the elderly parent they cared for passed on.  There was always someone who quickly filled their slot, however.

None of them were part of her social circle, and she definitely couldn't be classified as a professional caregiver today.   Apparently though, that was the role her parents assigned her early on in life.  And she fulfilled it until her final day on this earth.

While she was neither the youngest nor the oldest of the twelve children born into the crowded tenement on 47th Street,  Anna King was the older surviving female.  She never confided any details of her early life to either my sister or I.  Maybe she didn't want to remember.
Once she mentioned quietly that the day she and my Dad were married, her Father asked her to promise to return everyday and carry on her household duties.  That promise was given and kept until all the male members of the family died.

I never heard her once complain about the silken cord that bound her to her siblings or remaining parent.  It became an accepted fact in our family.

However, the "Poor Souls" added to her responsibilities.  She seemed to find them wherever her path took her.

During the War Years, Mom took a part-time job at F.A.O. Schwartz, walking the long blocks daily to their warehouse close to 11th Avenue.  I vaguely remember her speaking about one of the warehouse workers who was having problems with his family.  I never knew what kind of help she offered, but I know she did something.

Sometimes one of the "Poor Souls" would knock on our wooden door, and a quickly prepared ham sandwich (or two) would be given along with one of my Dad's suits.  He didn't have many, but apparently, there was always one he wasn't wearing that day.

Most of the time she seemed to befriend younger women, whose marriage was "in trouble."  That, of course, was only whispered about when Ellen and I were in the room, but I always wondered what kind of "trouble" there was.   I was never allowed to find out.

Years later long after I left the household, Mom was forced to relocate from the New York she loved to another state closer to my sister.  It was truly a good move for her although she never accepted it.  The neighborhood had changed.  Old friends had left, and she and her sister were alone.  Even the "Poor Souls" had long abandoned the streets Mom loved so much.

Yet in the new suburban cul-de-sac she moved to, there was still a "Poor Soul" or two to be found.  She would tell me during one of our daily  phone calls how she had done "some shopping" for the old lady who was alone across the courtyard, or how she had spent some time with the young bride who was so lonely and lived downstairs.  There wasn't ever a time when her list of needy people was empty.

Mom was a decade older than I am now when she was called to join Dad.  We spoke the morning before she went to the Emergency Room at the local hospital, and she told me she had just returned from bringing some soup to the "Poor Soul" who lived across the street.  I think she would have liked it to end that way, doing what she had all her life....taking care of others.

The weather is foreboding, the cold and ice traumatizing, and when I think about retreating more from life, I hear Mom's voice.  She says,
"Get going, Girl.  You're here for a reason."

I hear you Mom!

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