ICING ON THE CAKE
Last week’s blog post featured a 50-year friendship. You would think that would be hard to top. I posted that blog the day after my friend Maureen’s birthday.
Adding icing on the cake, I’m writing this just days after we celebrated my brother Stu’s 75th birthday on May 10th. I baked, then frosted the cake with orange icing, his favorite color, topped with superhero sprinkles for the comic book reader/collector.
Could it be five years since I posted OUR BROTHERS ARE ALL IN THEIR SEVENTIES, on May 26, 2020, at sharonmarkcohen.com? Today, Stu is our only brother in his 70s, and the others range from my husband’s brother, age 80, to my other brothers, ages 82 and 83.
One of life’s great mysteries is how long we’ll know someone. How well we’ll know them is another unknown. Growing up in a two-bedroom apartment with my three older brothers in Roselle, New Jersey, Stu and I shared a bedroom, while our parents slept in the dining room converted to a bedroom.
When we moved to a three-bedroom house in Elizabeth on January 1, 1965, my eldest brother claimed the front bedroom while I was assigned the smallest. Al and Stu shared the other bedroom on the second floor. Our parents once again converted the dining room into a bedroom.
As in a game of musical chairs, after my brother Nate married in June 1965, Al and Stu had separate rooms for a while. Then, when Stu went into the army, additional room swapping resumed until I married in 1975, Al moved out, and our parents moved their bedroom upstairs. Today, Al and Stu live in that house at the North End of Elizabeth.
Oh, the thought of those nights in Roselle, begging my brother, a full three years my senior, to bid me pleasant dreams so I could drift into blissful sleep. Now, the tables have turned, and he shares his nightly dreams with me, which he often terms nightmares.
Since posting a picture of Stu’s birthday cake on my Facebook page at midnight on Saturday, at this point, the post has received 33 hits and more than a dozen comments. I forwarded them all to Stu.
Throughout the years, he’s met most of the members on that list of “friends.” Some are our cousins, who are older or younger than Stu. Others are my husband’s cousins, and over the years since Arnee and I met in 1969, Stu probably was in their company on one occasion or another. My friends who joined the list include those I’ve known for 50, 60, and more years.
Probably the longest-term family friend who offered birthday wishes was Sharon H, whom we’ve known since 1958 when she was Sharon K. A bit of an aside is that our mothers knew each other from their childhoods in Roselle when our grandmothers were living and were close friends. See NEARLY SIXTY YEARS BETWEEN SHOWS, dated May 21, 2019, at sharonmarkcohen.com.
Over the years, Stu has met some of our closest friends at our house, and they shared their wishes. There were even postings from friends who graduated from high school with Stu in 1968. Add to that our late mother’s devoted healthcare attendants from over a dozen years ago who so sweetly commented. Parents from our children’s sports teams, who probably saw Stu rooting at one or more of the children’s games, also added birthday congratulations.
When Stu calls me from the dialysis clinic, where he has been receiving treatment three days per week for over five years, we’ll discuss all the names of well-wishers, and I’ll make the connections for him. We’ll end the call with “I’ll talk to ya,” as we tend to do on those 12:15 PM calls and varied times on the other days of the week. We hope that continues until the next milestone and beyond for many more years.
Stuart and Sharon May 10, 2025 South Orange, New Jersey