Carol has been a reassuring constant in our lives ever since that first meeting back in November of 1991. My husband and I were desperately searching for a full time nanny to help us meet the new found challenges of parenthood, combined with the demands of owning a New York City based production company which kept us both on call twenty-four seven.
I'll never forget that first encounter. Either will Carol.
In fact, she still delights in recounting every second of those first few moments with our oldest son Will, who time and again, hangs onto her every word. "You were sitting in your high chair Winkle Fritter, eating your peas. I sat down alongside you and began counting them. One, two, three ..." At the time, I had run into the next room to answer a ringing telephone, missing this all important exchange, all the while leaving my husband the responsibility of chatting up our perspective new nanny. We'd already interviewed any number of qualified candidates and we were narrowing our search. I couldn't have been on the phone for more than ten minutes when I reentered the room. My husband and Carol were in the midst of laughing about something. I interrupted explaining that he now was required to take the call in the next room and that I'd continue the conversation with Carol. As he passed me heading for the phone, he whispered, "Look no further. She's the one."
During the ensuing half hour, Carol and I went over both her experience and our requirements. I promised I'd let her know within the next few days if she'd gotten the job. After shutting the door behind her, I quickly turned around to ask my husband why he felt so confident there was no point in looking elsewhere. He responded ever so nonchalantly by saying, "I just am. There's no question. She's perfect for us." With those words, Carol permanently entered both our lives and our hearts. We've often said it was one of the most important decisions we've ever made.
Carol grew up in Maypen, Jamaica. She has one daughter who at the time we hired Carol, was still in high school. Despite the fact that Carol and I were born within six months of each other, she was already an old hand at the whole child rearing thing. Her daughter ultimately went on to graduate at the top of her law school class and now practices law. Little wonder. For someone as bright and hardworking as Carol, I've often mused what her life would have been like had she chosen to go onto college herself. Unfortunately, securing a better life for herself and her daughter here in the U.S. was to preclude that. As such, she was a tough task master with her only child. Not so with her handling of our children. Funny enough, she never had to be. A gentle request from Carol was all that was needed as far as my brood was concerned. They were ever Johnny on the Spot with her. They were always eager to please Carol. Where I failed, Carol excelled. Where I had no patience, Carol had endless quantities of it. Where I had no energies left, Carol never faltered in whipping up a delicious meal for the entire family or to do a quick load of laundry after a twelve hour day. "Anyone interested in fried plantains? How about that delicious stuffed roti? There's left-over oxtail." No one does it better for comfort food.
Need some salt of the earth, down home advice? Get Carol's take on it. She has even accompanied us as a family to Europe on several occasions often enduring those quizzical stares from curious foreign onlookers. What a sight to behold we must have been with Carol and I corralling the boys while my husband toted our Chinese daughter. Once on vacation in Italy, I had an Italian friend ask me, albeit in a respectful tone, "Do you call her Mammy?" (Um, not quite. I don't think so...) I almost burst out laughing it seemed so absurd. Yet I knew he'd be startled by my reaction if I did so. If truth be told, I'd wanted to respond to him in Italian by saying, "no, but I myself often wish I could curl up on her lap and call her mommy..." but thought better of it lest something be lost in translation. Indeed, Carol has been a touchstone; a bedrock of reassurance in the darkest of times and one of our biggest supporters in times of accomplishment. In fact, a couple weeks ago our thirteen year old son had a part in his middle school's production of "High School Musical" playing the role of Ryan. As he leapt onto the stage for one of his featured song and dance numbers, I heard one of the loudest shout outs I've ever heard coming from two seats away, "Pete's my man! Pete's my boy! Go get 'em Peter!" The entire audience burst into both laugher and applause. Her unabashed enthusiasm lit a firestorm of hoots and hollers for our son. I'd never have had the courage to muster a shout out. People in the audience loved it. They loved it because it was Carol and so many of them have known Carol for almost as long as we have. If anyone could get away with such an enthusiastic shout out, it was Carol. They also know how Peter dotes on her unequivocally with every ounce of his being. The smile on his face at that very moment will be a lifetime memory for me. It stretched electrically from ear to ear.
Times have not been easy for Carol during these past fifteen years. Aside from worrying about us all, she has overcome uterine cancer, developed adult onset diabetes, broken a foot requiring hospitalization and even lost her eyesight completely in one eye. Yet she perseveres. Lucky for us. Lucky for our children. We were blessed from the moment Carol entered our world. Carol is our nanny, our sister, our mother, our best friend. Carol is more than simply any one of those. Whether she likes it or not, Carol is family.