For My Son, Robert. With Love, Dad

Every bench in Central Park has a story, all beginning with a dedication, this one's :

"For My Son, Robert. With Love, Dad."

Every bench in Central Park has a story, all beginning with a dedication, this one's :

For My Son, Robert. With Love, Dad

The bench is near 60th Street on the East Side overlooking the lake, Billionaires' Row, and The Plaza Hotel and the story immediately preceding the discovery of this dedication?

It's been a long day at the office, entering contacts into our CRM, listening to Urban Digs and Real Deal commentary on the shifting market. I sunlight as a Real Estate Agent at a "Luxury Brokerage" on Park Avenue and had run into Annie; a core mer of the firms most successful team. She's a 50something New Yorker who had lived as many lives per capita as I had and remains one of only a handful I'd met in the industry who valued people over money.

Nevertheless, I updated her on my pipeline, rattled off the names of a few clients I was working with and printed a copy of my most recent mailer to woo her.

It was the third in a series of West Village Tours I'd been sending to a handful of residents in buildings I was targeting. I'd spotted a map of the West Village with numbers and thought bubble descriptions of a series of destinations related to a common theme.

This one entitled, "SJP/WV/LGBT" is two pages, single spaced, and instructed villagers to begin the day at a coffee shop on Gay Street and outlined, as best as anyone can quickly, The Gay Rights Movement. It's inception at The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street, Marsha P. Johnson, Judy's Birthday, police brutality and the bravery and sacrifice of human beings I revere more than gravity.

"It is through disobedience that progress has been made. Through disobedience and through rebellion" -- Oscar Wilde

Annie reads every blurb and comments briefly on each. Regarding the final stop though she says nothing - only traps her breath mid-inhale and lurches for her phone.

Up 7th Avenue, outside Lenox Hill Hospital is a pocket of a park commemorating those lost to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. There's an inscription I can never bring myself to read very much of but I visit often and, in my own way... pray.

"Where's my Robert?" Annie says, her hands trembling now scrolling through her phone. "I don't think I have a picture of him older but I know there's one of the two of us at the beach...AH!" her voice cracks like Christmas, "It's blurry but you can see him."

I roll my chair to where she's standing and she lowers her phone. It's a picture she'd taken of a family photo album she'd found (inherited, I guess) cleaning out her mother's apartment.

"Everybody knew us at the beach because my Dad was in the military and always brought his parachute for us to sit on," she zooms in on a scrawny boy about 5, "isn't he handsome?"

"Very," I say, enlivening her as best I can, I gesture to a baby front and center, "That's you?"

"No," she says, almost curt, "THAT'S me."

She's one year apart from him, a little girl barely 4. Relieved enough we return to our stations, "I can't believe I don't have a picture of him older."

She tells me of the character he was: petit, bisexual, not overtly feminine but enough to wear a sequined jacket (rumored to have been worn by Liza herself) to a New Years Celebration at Studio 54 in the 70's. He was a lighting designer, employed by Studio 54 when it, "was what it was."

Robert's mother had just turned 101. Annie showed me a video of her drinking a margarita and Robert made more sense.

Annie told me she'd gone to visit Robert close to the end of his life:

"I know it was the right thing to do but..." her blue eyes flood, "My signature was a kiss. It was an insignia of mine, I'd wear bright red lipstick and leave a mark for them to remember me by. And when I went to visit him he was," she swallows, "a skeleton."

I almost hug her. She's looking up, mouth open, and crying still with a lump in her throat. I match her courage and hold the room still until she can speak.

"I know it was the right thing to do and I wore my red lipstick and smiled and joked and left a big red kiss mark right on his forehead but I... I know it was the right thing to do but sometimes a part of me wishes I hadn't because that's..."

We stay brave.

"THAT'S how I remember him."

Finally having said it, we release. We come back to ourselves slowly and enjoy the splendor and relief of our catharsis.

"OH MY GOD!" she says, this time with New Years in her voice, "Her birthday!" Annie, on her visit with Robert's Mother, had found a picture of him as an adult.

She opens her phone again, blinks away what tears she can and produces the photo in an instant.

"THERE he is," she beams. We both stand and walk to each other. There he is, on the cover of...

"PLAYGIRL?!" I exclaim.

"Oh yeah!" she registers, "he is."

I say again how handsome he is, "A cutie!" 

"Isn't he?"

We circle like this for as long as she needs until the pendulum stills, slowly. Eventually, we sit again. No one pretends they weren't crying but neither of us commemorate it unnecessarily. She continues working on her mailers and I, on entering the names of real people into a machine.

Eventually, she disappears behind me to the bathroom or the printer or to the office of our manager. Not soon after I'd forgotten she was there, I feel hands on the back of my head and a slight press into my baby soft spot.

"MMMMMUAH!" she stamps. And says on her way out the door, with more joy than anything, "I love you sweetie."