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Today, Carlos refers to Michael as his white pops, and Michael has overheard him in phone conversations saying, "I was just talking to my dad about that." When Carlos won a baseball scholarship to St. Charles Community College in Missouri, his player biography listed three parents: "Evelyn Velez, Michael Rosen and Leslie Gruss."Kindu recently graduated with an associate's degree from Morrisville State College, and Phil is at Mohawk Valley Community College in Utica. Will and Juan Carlos attended Borough of Manhattan Community College. Now teens, Ripton and Morgan are students at Brooklyn Friends School. Ripton still dreams of being a baseball player and hopes to go to Arizona State. Morgan is involved in extreme skateboarding. "I have friends who are single children," he says, "and I see how dull their lives are and am thankful for what we have."
It is not a life either of the Rosens imagined. "You meet some kids in the park," says Leslie, "and life unfolds, and they become part of your family. Parent-child love grows from caring. You know, I feel protected by these boys. They put their arms around me with that macho, I'm-gonna-take-care-of-you-forever thing. I thank them because they changed my life in many important ways."
"I don't think I would have become the man I am becoming if I wasn't in the Rosen family," says Phil. "It's not just Mike and Leslie and Ripton and Morgan. It's the others too; it's having the same friends for so long. I have a black brother and a white brother, and I tell everybody I'm half-Jewish. People do a double take, and I say, 'It's a long story.' It's a beautiful situation. We all just click."
On a recent weekend, all the boys were home for a surprise 50th birthday party for Leslie. Once again, the television was blasting, music was blaring, jackets and laptops were strewn all over the penthouse, and everyone was fighting about food left out of the fridge, mislaid athletic equipment and whose turn it was to walk the dog. When the time came to leave, Leslie urged the boys to make sandwiches instead of stopping on the road, and Michael complained about the late start and opened his wallet for gas money. There were hugs, kisses and shouts of "Bye, guys! Study! Drive carefully. Love you! Study!"
"There's a lot of love in this family, no matter what," says Kindu. "This is for life."
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