Veronica

Well, it has been a while since I wrote down my thoughts.  I said that the next time I wrote, it would be when Veronica got her condo.  SHE GOT HER CONDO! It wasn't the one she was looking at last year, in fact she put down offers on another property in between, but it's now official. Amazingly enough, she is living in the old Jersey City Medical Center building.  A place that I used to call on as a hospital rep when she was a baby.  Her condo is on a high floor with a great view of New York, it's an amazing place for an amazing young woman.


However, this post is not about an apartment/condo, it's about my first born.  Veronica or as I still think of her, Nicki, has been the light of my life since June 2, 1984.  As a baby, she was a gurgling, bubbling fountain of joy.  Before she was two she was talking, and as a precursor to her future skills, at the age of three she was sitting on her mothers' lap and pointed at a word in the newspaper and read her first word, Macy's.  In her early talking days she fell in love with the numbers 28, 29, so for months the answer to every question was 28,29.  Nick, how old are you - 28,29,  how much does daddy weigh - 28,29.  Since Daddy was a biscuit away from 300, he really liked that one.


As the voice said in the Bible, this is my daughter in whom I am well pleased.  While we all see ourselves in our kids, Veronica scares me sometimes in the ways she reminds me of .... me!  Yet she is totally unique.  She has exhibited numerous personalities in her 27 years, as a baby she was that embodiment of joy, a ray of sunshine in a little body.  Her next personality was Big Sister, she was almost 3 when her sister was born and for years she was spokeswoman, caretaker, and protector.  Around age 8, the little girl who never went to bed without a book and who loved school, ran into an idiot of a teacher and soon decided she hated school and although she was so smart that her grades stayed up all through her subsequent school years, she never regained the love of learning that she had as a toddler.


Just before Veronica turned 13 an evil spirit took over her body and the little girl who brought joy and happiness to her mother and me left us for a couple of years.  Well, it was either that, or we moved from New Jersey to Tennessee and Veronica rebelled in a very big way.  She hated the very idea of leaving Jersey and for the next two years she took every opportunity to remind us that we had ruined her life.  In January of 1999, we moved back to New Jersey and we got the real Veronica back.  It was like she threw a switch, and while she has never really forgiven us for that Tennessee move, she reverted to the person that continued to bring us joy and still does.


High school was a blur, I do remember that Veronica had a tendency to erase people.  A kid would come to our house for years, suddenly they had a fight with Veronica and we never saw the kid again.  I still wonder what happened to some of them.  


Veronica's college years started on a down note, although both her mother and I encouraged her to go out of state, she decided to go to Rutgers.  After one night in the dorm she came home and said she wasn't going back.  My daughter who is a clean freak was skeeved by the dorm and made up her mind in one day that she was going to live at home and commute.  Her mom and I fought her for nearly three days, but one thing that can be said for Veronica is her determination is harder than diamonds(or her head). She lived at home, commuted and within a year decided on the career path that was her true calling so she transferred to Bloomfield College of Nursing, where she eventually got her RN.  


Most recently, Veronica got a great job at the hospital where she was born.  Talk about coming full circle, my little girl is all grown up.  Great job, great condo, going for her Master's, my daughter is truly a remarkable woman.  She is loyal to her friends, but doesn't suffer fools.  She acts like she doesn't care, but her patients love her.  She's a little shy in groups, but draws people to her.


In the past 27 years my daughter has given me more than I could ever have asked.  She makes me laugh, she is compassionate, she can swear like a longshoreman, she jumps in the car and drives 4 hours to take her grandmother to the doctor, she's taken care of my dogs even though she hates animals, she is more Cuban at 50% than I am at 100%, and she loves her mother and father almost as much as her parents love her.


Good Luck Baby!