Community:
After loss, a new beginning
December
30, 2004
By
Julian Wise
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The family together (left to right): Grace, Rob, Justin, Gina,
Kaya, and Sam. Photo by JJ Gonson
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The home of
Rob Oslyn and Gina Patti is a busy, happy place filled with children,
pets, toys, fish tanks, and other artifacts of a bustling household.
Their wedding this past summer was a joyous celebration of their
decision to blend their families and begin a new life together.
It was also a testament to love’s power to help lives touched
by loss make the transition towards new beginnings.
Rob is a tall, solidly-built man with soft, gentle features he’s
passed along to his three children. Gina is an energetic, quick-minded
woman with a gift and passion for teaching. Before they met, Rob
and Gina’s lives were progressing along different trajectories.
Both were Long Island natives who found their way to Martha’s
Vineyard by different routes. Rob moved to the Island in 1988 to
recover from a neck injury. After his mother passed away that summer,
he stayed in her cottage. When he and his wife Elizabeth began their
family, the house grew through several additions to accommodate
their three children, Justin, Sam, and Grace. Gina first came to
the Island from New York City on Memorial Day of 2000 with her high
school sweetheart David Seiman. The next fall she was hired at the
Oak Bluffs School as a Special Education instructor. She and Dave
married and began their lives together on the Island.
On Aug. 30, 2002, Liz Oslyn passed away after a year-long bout with
cancer. Liz was a beloved figure in Oak Bluffs, known for her remarkable
empathy and generosity, and the Island community gathered around
the Oslyn family during her illness and afterwards, providing everything
from material support to home-cooked meals.
By September of 2002, Gina had made the transition from Special
Education instructor to 4th grade classroom teacher. Justin Oslyn
was a student in her class.
“She took him under her wing,” Rob recalls. Gina sought
Rob’s permission to spend extra time with Justin during that
difficult year.
“Justin made an impact on me as a teacher,” Gina recalls.
“I’m sure there wasn’t a day that went by I didn’t
come home and talk to Dave about something that affected me regarding
him. Because of Justin, Dave and I spoke about death a lot. Justin
gave us an opportunity to have conversations I don’t think
I would have had with him.”
That winter Dave and Gina were expecting their first child. During
the April vacation, while visiting their families in New York, Dave
suffered a severe stroke. After several days in the hospital, he
passed away. Gina was seven months pregnant at the time. In the
midst of her grief, Justin was still on Gina’s mind. “Even
when Dave got sick and was in the hospital, I just kept thinking
about Justin,” she recalls.
A gathering of David’s friends and family convened for a memorial
ceremony that spring to honor the memory of the warm, gregarious
man who always had a broad smile and friendly word for everyone
he encountered. Rob attended the ceremony and recalls being touched
by a desire to help Gina through her grief. Rob visited Gina in
the hospital the day after her daughter Kaya was born. In the following
months, he encountered her periodically around town.
“At some point in time I fell in love with this woman,”
he says. “We didn’t even start talking socially until
this past January.” Their initial contacts were limited to
phone calls due to busy work schedules, cancelled babysitters, snowstorms,
and other logistical hurdles. Finally, on January 23, 2004, they
had the opportunity to spend time together in person. “The
first nights we spent together, we laughed, we cried, talked about
life and death, just the most amazing things that people don’t
talk about when they meet and start a relationship,” Rob recalls.
They discussed both the similarities and differences in their experiences,
of one losing a loved one suddenly and another over a prolonged
period of time. They talked about one’s children being aware
of the loss of a parent while another’s never knew their father.
“After that it was a whirlwind, it was very natural,”
Rob recalls. In February Rob asked Gina to be his wife and this
past August they were married in a joyous ceremony. “I cried
through the whole thing,” Rob recalls with a laugh. “I’m
such a mush.”
Rob describes the process of blending the two families as a natural
process. “Gina is an incredibly loving, caring person,”
he says. “She knew Justin, and because of what she and I went
through, Sam and Grace were sensitive and open to her. There was
no resistance to any of it. We all just fell together with very
few bumps on the road.”
Rob says the process of taking each other’s children into their
hearts has also been natural. “When I fell in love with Gina,
I fell in love with Kaya,” he says.
“They’re great kids,” Gina says of her step-children.
“There’s a lot of discussion, a lot of celebration of
their mom and David jointly. They’re part of our lives, because
daily one of those people comes up and there’s some sort of
discussion about them. There isn’t resentment that anyone’s
trying to take over anyone else’s role, because neither one
of us are.”
Both Rob and Gina express gratitude for both the love they shared
with their previous spouses and the opportunity to experience love
again. “The major thing that we talked about since the beginning
is how grateful we are that we came together and that it’s
been such a beautiful, loving relationship,” Rob says. “We
could cry at the gratitude. Who do you say thank you to for a second
chance like this?”
“There’s a sense that this time is precious, that you
don’t want to lose any of it to negativity,” Gina says.
“When Liz died, I saw no future,” Rob says. “Gina
gave me the gift of life, and it came out of nowhere.” He grabs
her hand, smiles, and says, “she’s giving me the gift
of life as it should have been and is again.”
Rob and Gina look with tremendous pride upon the four children in
their home. This fall Justin is 11, Sam 9, Grace 7, and Kaya is
15 months old. As a family, they enjoy apple picking, swimming at
the Mansion House, going out for ice cream and movies, and trips
off Island to Virginia and Washington, D.C. This winter they’re
looking forward to a ski trip and a visit to Canada. Asked what
they’re looking forward to in the future as a family, the older
children sit on the couch with shy giggles until Justin grins and
says, “seeing Kaya grow.”
Julian Wise is a free-lance writer, educator, and, since 1998,
a frequent contributor to The Times, specializing in music, film,
and performing arts.
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