remembering emma

Emma Bee Bernstein

May 16, 1985- December 20, 2008

I only knew Emma for a short time, but she was a friend to me, and I will miss her very much.

Emma and I first met in autumn 2007, at Club Foot in Chicago. It was unseasonably warm for October, I remember, and I had just moved into a new apartment in Logan Square. Collier and Jess had just moved to Chicago, and I was going to meet Nona and Emma for the first time. Collier had told me a lot about them, about their project, and how they were good friends of hers from New York City.

Over the next year, I got to know Emma on numerous occasions – dinners, brunches, drinks, parties, watching Top Chef at Collier, Jess and Nona’s apartment where Emma’s photographs were on display. When Collier, Nona and Jess hosted a Passover dinner, Emma made delicious matzo ball soup of which I had two or three servings. Emma was over at my apartment just once – she stopped by to use the washroom. She liked the chalkboard Charles and I painted on our kitchen wall, so Charles gave her the rest of our chalkboard paint. I don’t know if she used it, but I remember the time Emma finished painting her bedroom walls – light blue, I think. She was very proud of it.

It was snowing in Chicago on December 20, and when Collier called me about Emma, I was lying in bed watching Yi yi, a film by the late Taiwanese director Edward Yang. At the center of the film is a family, and the story branches out to other individuals connected to this family – friends, neighbors, in-laws, colleagues and classmates. Every person in the film, though part of a family and a community, fights his or her own personal battles privately, without quite grasping that perhaps their crises are a shared human experience. The only person who truly understands is an 8-year-old boy, an aspiring photographer who takes a series of photographs of the backs of peoples’ heads in order “to show people the stuff they cannot see.” Emma and I talked about film from time to time, and we had plans to make a silent short film with my Super 8 camera when she returned to Chicago from Venice. I wonder if she ever saw Yi yi. I think she would have liked it. Yi yi’s title literally translates to “one one”, but also “two.” In other words, we are at once individuals and part of a community, both inside and outside. This captures the very conflict of our existence – as Emma writes, “All inner and outer life finds itself eternally irresolvable.”

After I heard about Emma, I was outside in Logan Square, the neighborhood in which I live, in which Emma lived. I thought about Emma as I walked – it was natural to think of Emma in this neighborhood because she loved this neighborhood. I walked past Tony’s, the grocery store near Emma’s old apartment at the corner of Fullerton and Central Park. One time, I was walking on Fullerton to a Metra stop, when someone shouted out the window of a car, “Hey, girl!” It was Emma, sitting in the passenger seat of Nona’s old white car. They were on their way back from the grocery store and gave me a lift. I walked past the Burlington and the Whirlaway on Fullerton Avenue. I walked on Milwaukee – past Puebla and Dunlay’s and the Whistler. When a group of us went out to eat Dunlay’s, Emma and I split veggie burgers – Emma liked to share dishes, I remember.

The last time I hung out with Emma was a few nights before Thanksgiving. I met up with Collier and Nona and Emma at Dunlay’s, where we ate the cookie treat. Then we walked to the Whirlaway – Nona and Collier in front, me and Emma behind them. It was a cool autumn night on Logan Boulevard, and Emma and I talked about boys and vinyl records. At the Whirlaway, Emma brought out a beautiful red Nars lipstick. I wanted to try it, but since I cannot apply lipstick without a mirror, Emma did it for me. It felt nostalgic – I felt as though I’d known Emma for a long time. We shared my whiskey because Emma didn’t like the beer she was drinking. Collier put some music on the jukebox. Aaron, Nona’s boyfriend, showed up later on. As we were all getting ready to leave, I remember that Emma wanted to go to El Pacifico for a snack, but I couldn’t because I had to work the next morning and it was late. I understood why Emma was disappointed – we’d had a lovely evening, with great conversation, and it was too bad that the fun could not continue on down the street, at another venue, where we could have margaritas and share some delicious Mexican food.

When I think about Emma, I am reminded that we all make an impact on one another, no matter how grand or minute. Without a doubt, Emma will be missed by those closest to her, by her family and her best friends, and I give them my deepest condolences. Emma will also be missed by those whose lives she briefly graced, those who knew her for a year, for a few months, for a week, for a day. Emma made such an impression on me because she was brave, independent, accepting and open. She never hesitated to talk to me very candidly about what was bothering her and what was making her sad. In turn, I felt I could confide in her too. There was a certain magnetism about Emma, a particular grace and luminosity that touched me.

Emma wore a necklace that was a large, golden heart charm on a long chain. She always had it on, and I cannot think of Emma without thinking of that big heart of gold, reflecting and spreading its light everywhere.