NAZMOON SHARES HER STORY

This is a woman with a whole lot of time on her hands these days, ever since she was laid off from her job as a law firm secretary in midtown Manhattan. She no longer has to take the subway into the city from her home in Queens.

As another unfortunate victim of the wave of job loss caused by the recent recession, this 67-year-old resident of the Richmond Hill neighborhood who is so used to dealing with people and facts in the high-energy world of a big city law firm is staying close to home and doing the thing that she has always done very well.

Nazmoon is staying in touch, still connected, not with a law firm’s clients anymore but with her friends and neighbors. When she shares a story about the life she’s leading these days, you can tell she likes this life and probably doesn’t miss those daily subway rides a bit.

“I have a friend who moved out of Queens into Long Island and she has older parents,” Nazmoon tells the story. ”And she asked me, ‘Can you take them to get their blood work done?’ And, you know, I enjoyed doing that. I felt good about it. Sometimes. I would cook a meal and take it over or I would do their grocery shopping. And, you know, whatever I could do to help my neighbors.”

Nazmoon’s parents came to America from the South American country of Guyana and gave their three daughters names from their Muslim faith, but permitted them to go out into the world with names that identified them as just another girl in their new country. “So I was given the name Sandra and I was always called Sandy but you can say my name is Nazmoon,” Nazmoon says with a soft laugh, a sound that affirms just how comfortable this friendly, outgoing lady is with knowing who she really is.

A vegetarian and a self-described “borderline diabetic,” she loves to cook. “I have a little garden out back that I tend and I have a flower garden in front, which I enjoy very much,” she says. “I like fresh herbs when I’m cooking.”

Nazmoon has a lot to share about her life these days, including the trampoline and stationary bicycle she uses to keep in shape along with stretching exercises, even though she readily confesses she hates exercising and relies on a friend to keep her motivated. She also confesses that she has to fight the boredom that comes with the life of an unemployed career woman.

So she forces herself to get off the couch, turn off the TV and put down the crossword puzzle. In a phrase, Nazoom is staying busy staying connected to her world far from that law firm’s office. The fact is, she was starting to have some minor problems with her memory while she was in that office. “Sometimes I needed to describe something but didn’t feel as sharp, whereas before I always took pride in being articulate in my conversations,” she says. She had noticed some Prevagen commercials and decided to try it. “Let me tell you, it did work.”

No matter if you call out for Sandy or Sandra or Nazoom, you will get a friendly response from this lady of Queens.