25 years ago as a new born to immigrant parents, we set up shop at a local flea market selling basic kitchenware and other miscellaneous items. Slowly day by day we accumulated enough to open up our first store front and thus “Martin’s Variety Store” was created. With parents that work 12 hour days 7 days a week, my childhood was spent running around the aisles and assisting in anyway I could by sweeping or counting change for our customers. My days were spent doing my homework under the register where I had my very own makeshift fort and bed while my parents kept the business afloat. It wasn’t too bad at first as we had arcade games and as the owners son, had unlimited playtime when the neighborhood kids weren’t around trying to beat my high score. The place became my own sanctuary as we also sold toys and for “research purposes” I had to test each one out.Not every memory was a good one though as we’ve had our fair share of bad encounters. I specifically remember when I was 5 years old and my mother was pregnant with my younger brother Ricky, my dad was busy hammering on a shelf and had left for a brief moment to go buy some more nails from the hardware store down the block while me and my mom tended to the store. No more than 30 seconds pass before a masked individual came inside and demanded all the money from our register. My mom stood her ground and told the would be robber that she was pregnant and with her son, myself, but this didn’t stop the guy from grabbing my pregnant mother and throwing her on a glass display, shattering it. Our neighbor at the time heard the commotion and burst in to help, only to get sucker punched right when he came in, I’ve never seen that much blood at my age but that didn’t stop me from wailing at him with the little hands I had. As he was grabbing the money from our register, my dad had just walked into the scene with his hammer still in hand. We won’t discuss what allegedly occurred then but during the scuffle, my fallen mother happened to be next to the phone and dialed 911. When the cops came, the “subdued” robber was brought to the first cop on the scene and could you guess what his first words were to the cop? “Hey dad...” Awkward….
Eventually, with the concentration in party supplies, the addition of being a florist and the birth of my sister a decade later, we renamed and moved down the block as “Jasmin’s Florist & Hall Decorators.” Coincidently, the apartment upstairs was also vacant, so from then on we lived right above our legacy. I carried on working for my parents as I finished high school and then being the first to graduate college in our family and soon after becoming a CPA. On the weekends and when I was needed, I managed the front end of the store and made deliveries across New York making every bride to be or quinciniera’s special day happen. As I finally made my leave from the store and home, I left it in the hands of my siblings Ricky and Jasmin and in recent year’s you’ve seen running around the store the new addition to the family Christian, now 5.
Unfortunately the same upbringing my siblings and I experienced, Christian will not experience as on Monday, August 6, a basement fire quickly engulfed the building and left my parents Martin and Luz unemployed; my siblings Ricky 19, Jasmin, 16 and Christian 5; our upstairs neighbor Jose; and our cat Celine 10, homeless. Over 20 years of building something from nothing, has come full circle to where nothing remains. We thank everyone who has opened their doors to house my family and the over 100 firefighters who battled the blaze through heat exhaustion on such a scorching day. Everybody is lucky to be alive but the steps to rebuild is going to be a long and painful journey. I ask that you help contribute to their fresh new start and share this to get the word around. I appreciate your time to read our story and thank you.
-Andy Calixto