remembrances and recollections

BY BETTE DEWING

Depending on which paper you read, Antal Kiss was either 73 or 75 years old when he suffered fatal head trauma from a fall on an icy Upper East Side sidewalk earlier this month. What does age have to do with this terribly tragic accidental loss of life? Well, if this “elderly man” had been a lot younger, his death on a slippery sidewalk would have received more than small items in the Daily News and the Post. It might even have made The Times, which rarely even covers what my Pedestrians/Safe Travel First group calls vehicular “crimes of traffic.”

And so crucial to safe sidewalk conditions, if Antal Kiss had been a child, the concern about un-shoveled and icy sidewalks would be front-paged and prime-timed. Now winter storm warnings are only about making the streets and avenues passable.

Even though New York is the nation’s most walkable city, side street walkways especially are “short shrifted” by landlords required to remove ice and snow by a certain hour. Do check this paper’s Helpful Contacts column for information and if you remember nothing else from this column, remember to keep this list of elected officials and other resource groups handy. Keep calling the electeds to remind them that government’s first constitutional duty is to protect public welfare and safety and to see that the laws that ensure that protection are strictly enforced — strictly enforced.

And to help this life and death cause, we must also remember how Upper Eastsider Antal Kiss was just out for a late Sunday morning walk – maybe to get the paper and a coffee at a nearby deli or coffee shop, or on his way to or from a Sunday worship service (lamentably, neither type public place is that nearby anymore). Consider as well that the snow had stopped falling and the city was wonderfully quiet — and serenely beautiful — just right for a uniquely restorative walk. Ah, but underfoot on East 73rd near Second avenue there was a patch of likely snow-covered ice that caused Antal Kiss to slip and to fall. There were witnesses to call 911 — although in vain — and one only hopes he did not suffer.

And one almost hopes Antal Kiss — he was identified by the Daily News — did not have anyone to be devastated by his so shocking and sudden accidental and preventable death. Many at that age do, of course, but also many also live alone and getting “out of the house” and into the community can be so needed in a society so divided by age, and where loneliness is now said to be epidemic and a major health hazard.

And after the holidays existing families are often far away and this relates to what I intended to write about before the, again so preventable and so tragic death of Antal Kiss.

The subject was Marian Robinson whom I wish President Obama had also thanked in his moving farewell address. And it wasn’t her age of 77 that made him forget to include her, but that close extended family ties get short shrift in our nuclear family-oriented society. Maybe you noticed, but Robinson was sitting next to first daughter Malia (where was Sasha?) but too few knew this was the maternal grandmother who for eight years had looked after the first daughters. Too few read that 2015 Reader’s Digest interview with the first lady which so needs a reviving — the part about being so grateful to have her mother there to care for her daughters, but also as someone to whom she could “really sound off with.”

This so appreciative daughter, whom Vice President Joe Biden recently called “probably the greatest First Lady ever,” ended that interview saying “the extended family is key.” I believe she added, but somehow the reporter failed to include, that the extended family was “key” to a stable society, where no one is left out — and loneliness is not epidemic when generations, familied or otherwise, are mutually supportive and sufficiently connected.

And here’s hoping the soon to be former first lady will keep pushing that message and that her mother will remain an integral part of the Obama household. And hey, maybe the incoming first lady will also pick up on that potentially uniting Rx. (We gotta have hope!)

And maybe you will too, and, of course, keep demanding safe streets and sidewalks — in memory of Antal Kiss.

dewingbetter@aol.com.