Remembering Glenn

I had been looking for this photo for the last month and just found it on Friday.  It was taken in the backyard of 62 Interboro Parkway in Brooklyn probably in 1952.  From L to R Marty, Glenn & mary Beth

Although I’m only five and a half years older than my cousin, Glenn, I’ve always had a bit of a protective feeling towards him.

When my Aunt Margie and Uncle Bill moved from their first apartment in the Bayridge section of Brooklyn to a house right up the street from mine on Interboro Parkway, I was called upon to help out with Glenn’s care under the watchful eye of his mother.    Eventually my cousin, Sharon, and I were given full babysitting responsibility for our younger cousins, Glenn and Greg.

As the years passed, the Foulkes family expanded and subsequently moved to their own home on 45^th Street in Flatbush.  I would travel by city buses from East New York through Bedford-Stuyvesant to Flatbush in order to continue as their primary babysitter.  

During these early years I remember Glenn as a mild-mannered, gentle child who was a bit on the shy side.  He was a kind kid and he never gave me, his babysitter, any trouble even though we were relatively close in age.  He was easy to care for and a pleasure to me around.  He also assumed some of the responsibility as my helper.  I remember one time when his brother, Greg, fell on the sidewalk and sustained a rather nasty gash, Glenn was the one who came running to report the problem to me.   He also directed me to the Mac and Cheese and answered any other questions I had about the typical procedures of the household.  

When I babysat, Glenn loved to run around outside and, being a bit of a history buff, he enjoyed playing a made-up, imaginative game he named “Roosevelt’s Charge”,  in which he imitated Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders.   He also loved playing ball with his cousins, brothers and a buddy named John White.

As the years passed and I eventually married and moved upstate, we didn’t get to see each other very much except at weddings and other major family events.  Nevertheless, I heard about all the things going on in his Glenn’s life through my Aunt Margie who was always quite proud of her first born son.  Glenn was an avid reader and he also loved to travel.   He took great pleasure in reading about all the places he wanted to visit and especially enjoyed mapping out each planned adventure in great detail prior to the trip.

I was also aware that Glenn endured immense pain and suffering during his lifetime.  I remember his tremendous anxiety and concern when his son, Christopher, faced a life-threatening illness requiring dangerous and precarious brain surgery.  He suffered through many other personal losses.  It’s hard for me to understand why an individual as kind and loving as Glenn must face such pain and heartache.

In 2001, when disaster struck at the World Trade Center, my protective feelings towards Glenn resurfaced.   At the time, he was a fireman in midtown Manhattan, and although I knew he had physically survived the initial attacks, I was concerned over how he was handling this unimaginative, horrendous experience.   I called Glenn and we spoke for quite some time.  He spoke of the shock and disbelief. He described the feeling of being at a “constant wake” as people from all over the world streamed through his firehouse.  He said he had never been hugged so much in all his life but the continuous sadness was overwhelming, the grief was intense and the hugs were beginning to pull him down.  He described the pervading sense of numbness as if the surviving firemen had been anesthetized.  Glenn told me he lost 15 “brothers” from his house alone and he personally knew more than 60 guys who died that day.  The loss was unimaginable, too unbelievable to comprehend and internalize.  Those who were left behind that day were considered lucky by some, but how does anyone deal with this level of heartbreak? How does anyone erase this indelible picture of hell that promptly became known as “Ground-Zero”?

Glenn was a smart and sensitive man.  And, in the last decade of his life he became keenly aware that his brain was somehow failing him.   At my niece, Shannon’s wedding, he sought me out and told me how distraught he was over the symptoms he was experiencing.  He was fighting frantically to come to some sort of an understanding of what was going on in his mind.  He desperately wanted to return to a state of normalcy; he wanted his life back.    He was terrified and I was unable to help him.  I had no answer. 

All these incredibly sad facts would be too horrible to bear except for my belief that Glenn, like the rest of us, was not just a human being on a spiritual journey but rather, a spiritual being on a human journey.   And, this marvelous, loving spiritual being -incarcerated for a time as Glenn William Foulkes - is now freed up from the chains of humanity and is soaring in splendor and pure love beyond our human eyes.