Farewell, Rosanne

I met Rosanne in July of 1991. We were airing our toddlers at a large playground in Sheepshead Bay. Jason and Louis immediately took to each other and ran off to play together. Rosanne looked at me and grinned.



"They're in cahoots!" she said. Jason and Louis continued to be in cahoots throughout their childhood and adolescence too.



Rosanne and I encountered each other in the playground a number of times. She was uncomfortable going home to her apartment on Quentin Road because there was a mouse problem. So she stayed most of the day in the park, and the family ate out almost every night because it upset her to cook where the mice played.



Not too long after we met, we began meeting by design. When the weather turned cold, we left the playground and began meeting in indoor play spaces like Burger King and MacDonald's. Back then many of the fast food restaurants had little play areas for the children, filled with plastic balls they could climb around in, slides, and other attractions. We'd buy Happy Meals for the kids and then sit and chat while they played in the ball pit.



Sometime during that first year, Rosanne and her family moved out to Canarsie to get away from the mice. I was sad, thinking that we might drift apart. Without a car, Canarsie seemed so far away. But at that time Rosanne and Allen had a big brown car and she would come pick me up to go hang out somewhere.



We always had a struggle with the car seats. That is, we had a struggle with getting Louis into his car seat. Jason would get into the car seat calmly but Louis hated them and he would put up such a fight that it would take the both of us to hold him down and snap him into the seat. That may have been one of the first times I heard Rosanne utter one of her signature lines: "Louis Henry, I'm gonna crown you, and it ain't gonna be King!"



My response always was, "But Ro! You named him for two royal houses, naturally he thinks he's in charge!"



In the early years, we celebrated New Year's Eve together. We'd visit them or they would come over to us. We'd have a feast, share some wine, and then eat delicious and sinful desserts. Then there would be a sleepover. We travelled together, too. When the boys were just under 4 years old, we rented an SUV and they drove us out to Lancaster, PA for a weekend. The boys were impossible: overtired and full of mischief, they led us on a merry chase the entire weekend. But we still managed to have fun visiting the Amish country and Hershey Park.



At one point, when the kids all entered school, we had a weekly standing date for Burger King or MacDonald's. Rosanne sometimes brought Louis, and Jason's other two friends, Steven and Morgan, often came too.



Sometime shortly after they moved to Canarsie, Rosanne was approached by some Jehovah's Witnesses who came door to door. She became interested and began going to Bible study with them. I was concerned again when I saw how her views were changing. Suddenly evolution was all wrong, even celebrating birthdays was all wrong. For a few years, she continued to allow Louis to come to Jason's birthday parties but she would send Allen with him in her stead. Then when she was baptized, she no longer allowed him to come at all.



But Rosanne held firm about one thing. She told me that when she joined the Witnesses they wanted her to give up all her "worldly" friends who would lead her astray. "You and me are friends for life," she assured me. And Jason and Louis would be friends for life, too. We joked about watching them graduate college together, about watching them be each other's best men at their weddings.



That wasn't going to happen.



I was the one who got sick first. In 1997 we discovered that I had breast cancer. Rosanne was a huge help. She took care of Jason several times when I went into the hospital for procedures. She helped out again when Bruce had his bout with cancer in 1998.

The kids grew up, and began going out places without adults along. Sometimes Rosanne and I did not see each other for a few months at a time but we always kept in touch and kept up the friendship.

Then, in January 2007, Rosanne wasn't feeling well. She had trouble breathing and tired easily. An X ray or scan showed a large mass in her chest cavity that hadn't been there 4 months earlier when she had a previous X ray. Sadly, the mass turned out to be malignant, a rare form of cancer. I believe it was called myxoid liposarcoma, a type of tumor that grows in the fat cells.

Rosanne was in and out of the hospital many times in the next year and a half. She had her surgery several months later, delaying it somewhat because she was a Witness and wanted to find a doctor who would operate without having to give her whole blood. Her husband feared that while she searched for such a doctor the cancer would spread.

Honestly, I don't think the delay in surgery affected the outcome. This tumor was huge when it was found and probably had already spread to her liver and other places. It was also extremely fast growing. In any case, Rosanne suffered several infections and other problems that delayed her chemotherapy time after time. Each time that happened the tumor had the opportunity to grow, until it overtook her.

The last time I saw her, it was about 36 hours before she died. She was miserably uncomfortable. She wasn't eating and she kept calling out and praying. I don't think she was in terrible pain but she just could not feel relaxed and comfortable. Her labored breathing was very obvious. I knew she didn't have a lot of time. As we left the hospice I prayed that she would be taken quickly and in her sleep. And that's what happened.

She leaves behind a husband of 23 years, an 18 year old son, and many, many friends. I have no doubt that Rosanne will be long remembered. I'll miss her.