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CB & Elinor: Love is a color that never fades

HighlightsCB & Elinor: Love is a color that never fades

I originally wrote this piece back in 2019 shortly after leaving Mr. Charlie’s house with my mom. It came to mind recently when we read Mr. Colin Hyde’s memoir for a class of mine at UB, and I thought to share it with my class, and then my family, including my grandfather, who is a very close friend of Mr. Charlie Hyde. It is he who told me that Mr. Hyde has a very important upcoming birthday.

As Mr. Charlie is turning 100 years old in a few days, I thought to revisit this piece that celebrates his life along with the late Ms. Elinor. I would like to present it to be printed in the Amandala as a means to honor Mr. Charlie’s life so far and for his birthday.

Kind regards,
Mariette Romero

Monday, May 29, 2023

Mista Charlie Hyde, also fondly known as “CB”, has long been a household name at the residence of my grandparents, Paul and Sonja Rodriguez. It’s a wonder that in CB’s older age, it is his eyes that he has trouble with as opposed to his ears, as I’m sure they’ve rung constantly due to the frequency with which he is mentioned in our conversations. And if Mista CB ayz neva mi di ring, surely his home phone was, because he and my Grandpa Paul have been best friends for as long as I can remember, and their companionship was built on the basis that they found each other to be intellectual equals. They thrived on bouncing ideas off one another.

When I was a child, Mista CB and his darling wife, Miss Elinor, still lived on West

Canal Street. CB always had the latest issue of the Amandala set aside for Grandpa Paul fresh off the press, so when Grandpa took me along to CB’s house at least twice a week after school, the roll of shop paper was still slightly warm on the inside. I was much too young and unaware to tune into whatever national politics they decided was their business that afternoon, so I sat on the couch next to them waiting for Miss Elinor to turn the corner out of the kitchen and notice I was there. Thanks to my grandpa’s passionate exclamations, I never had to wait too long. Miss Elinor would soon follow the sound of his voice, which led to me, swinging my legs in anticipation of her welcoming expression as she appeared in the doorway, beckoning me to follow her. She kept a jar of “joojoo” in the kitchen—large, orange gummies with sugar sprinkled all over them. I often saw them sold at grocery stores like Save U and Bottom Dalla, but I never asked for them, because I preferred to have Miss Elinor give them to me. It was my way of keeping our little ritual sacred.

We never exchanged many words, but the routine is what rivaled the lack of my knowing Mista CB and Miss Elinor personally. I knew that Miss Elinor had candy and Mista CB had a lot to say, and I could always rely on their warm hospitality whenever I made myself at home in whatever spot on their living room couch didn’t harbor a pile of newspapers. It’s one of the few childhood memories I have of Miss Elinor and Mista CB.

I suppose once they moved from that white, wooden house into a concrete structure closer to the sea, the grocery stores in the area didn’t carry “joojoo”, thus ushering in the end of our special little moments in the kitchen. It was different anyway, because I was much older by then, and evidently, so were CB and his wife. Eventually, too, my grandpa lost his ability to drive and no longer picked me up from school; our visits to CB and Ms. Elinor became less and less frequent.

In 2019, when my mom still held a position as a Justice of The Peace, CB called her to witness his signing of a number of documents, and I was with her that afternoon. It had been years since I had last stepped through the front door of the Hyde’s residence. It looked exactly the same, except that when we followed the nurse to one of the downstairs bedrooms, we found two hospital beds a couple of feet apart: one for CB and one for Miss Elinor. Those were new, and so was the nurse.

CB sat in a plastic chair between the two single beds facing Miss Elinor as she rested her eyes. He immediately recognized my mom’s voice. When she mentioned that I was there with her too, I walked over to give him a hug. He couldn’t see very well, but that didn’t stop the kindness in his eyes from letting me know he was happy I was there. He referred to me as “the baby” because he couldn’t remember my name, and I was happy that he remembered who I was. Surely, at 96 years old, his memory should have evicted me by now to retain more important information, so it felt incredibly intimate to be recognized by him. Evidently, there was a couch in his head piled with newspapers that still welcomed my company. Behind me, Miss Elinor shifted between her sheets and I turned to meet her kind eyes. She stretched out her hand shakily to hold mine. It seemed she had lost much of her mobility.

While Miss Elinor and I continued to hold each other’s hands and gaze, CB remained in his plastic chair, trying to explain to my mom how he’d been practicing his handwriting so that the signature she was there to witness would be good. My mom asked the nurse for a piece of scrap paper so he could practice before he signed the official documents. He started well, but his signature quickly turned into a cluster of scribbles. Pretty impressive for a nearly blind man if you asked me, but CB didn’t think so. He expressed utter shame and disappointment in himself. My mom, trying to offer some sort of reassurance, interrupted and told him about the Bishop who was 20 years his junior, but could not hold a pen. CB did the math in his head and then said “I am 95. The Bishop is twenty years younger than me…”. Laughing haughtily in between deliberations, CB concluded, “That makes him 75.” He sat there for a few moments considering the comparison in age and capability between the Bishop and himself. An accomplished smile formed across his face. “Can’t hold a pen…,” he muttered smugly. That apparently gave CB the encouragement he needed to get his signatures done.

Meanwhile, I turned my attention back to Miss Elinor’s hands, which were periodically squeezing mine. That’s when I noticed that her fingernails were painted a bold shade of orange. Further inspection revealed that her toenails were painted the same color. I thought this was curious. What could have possibly been the occasion for Miss Elinor to have her nails polished such a demanding shade of orange? I had felt sorry for Miss Elinor moments before then. After all, I had walked into a room hosting a bedridden woman who I had previously known to be vibrantly living and breathing, walking and cooking, smiling and chatting. And now she muttered things that didn’t convince me she was all there anymore. But her hands—they dared me to pity her. They dared me to accuse her of being anywhere beyond the body stretched out in front of me now. Whether someone had offered to paint them for her, or she requested for them to be manicured, it was very telling of the woman she used to be before her body began to abandon her.

I’d rather not make further assumptions about her character in an attempt to romanticize the moment, but what I felt sure of was that this was a woman who knew how to make life and love last.

Before we left, my mom mentioned how CB stood by his wife’s side, figuratively and literally. “About 70 years now, yuh know?” CB announced. 70 years of marriage. The tremendousness of that fact lingered over all of us for a few moments. I wonder now what CB thought of then, or if he thought anything at all. But how many cups of coffee shared must that have been? And how many trips to church on Sunday with the children does that add up to? How many times must they have made their bed? 70 years’ worth of mundanities. But it was a good life, with a woman he loved, and he seemed grateful that it had lasted so long.

It became clear to me, what with the nail polish and the practice scribbles on the scrap paper, that the Hydes hadn’t lost sight of who they are as people. They’ve been remarkably resistant to the erasure of character that age sometimes brings. CB and Elinor are the perfect example of the kind of life and the kind of love that withstands all, and then a little more.

Written by Mariette Romero

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