Scott Stringer needs closure.
 
Arlene Stringer-Cuevas, matriarch of the family who once served in the City Council and used to teach English at the YMCA down the street from their Washington Heights home passed away almost a year ago.

As the city was plunged into the darkest days of the pandemic, she lay in a hospital bed in the Bronx alone. Away from her children and family. Sick with COVID-19 and unable to say goodbye.  

"She died, I couldn't reach out," Stringer told NY1 in a interview on Tuesday, sitting outside his childhood home in the Washington Heights section of Northern Manhattan.

"I couldn't visit her in the hospital, it was just unbelievable, and there are hundreds of thousands of people who had the same experience," Stringer said.
 
Stringer's parents separated when he and his brother were young boys. They grew up in the third floor apartment of 1 Bogardus Place. On that block, Stringer said he soon came to have many fathers and mothers who would watch over neighborhood children as they played stick ball and rode bikes on city streets.

Growing up he was surrounded by politics his entire life. His mother was a public school teacher and the cousin of Bella Abzug, a trailblazer for women in city politics. As a kid, Stringer would often tag along to political meetings, his mom was on her own charting out her own political path.
   
Now, as Stringer seeks the city's highest office, Arlene, who was never shy to give her own political advice isn't here to see it. It's a compounded loss for him. Like so many other New Yorkers, Stringer is still trying to figure out how to mourn all that's been lost in the past year.  
 
"The doctors pretty much told me she wasn't going to make it and it was a matter of time, she couldn't fight the COVID given her preexisting conditions," Stringer said. "So on some level we braced, but the truth is when it's final it doesn't matter how much you brace."
 
When Stringer was a young man when his mother re-married Carlos Cuevas, a Puerto Rican man who told Stringer he had no intention of being his father. Instead Stringer said the two forged a close bond that remains to this day.
 
"When Carlos came into her life, it was truly amazing, I had this new guy in my life, I had two step brothers. Carlos made it easy," Stringer said.
 
Stringer has a step brother, nephews and nieces and an extended blended family he says is emblematic of the New York experience. Following Arlene's passing, the family has been stepping up to help him campaign. Earlier this month they helped launch "Latinos for Stringer" -- highlighting Stringer's connection to that side of the family and stressing that he is in touch with the needs of Latino New Yorkers.
 
Carlos Augusto Cuevas, Stringer's nephew said the family usually gathers for Thanksgiving, were conversations are much like any other family in New York, except Stringer, is always looking to discuss politics.

"There is not a blood relation but there is a life and love relation," Cuevas said. "We are a family, not only has he dealt with Puerto Rican and Latino issues, but also immigrant and first generation."
 
As Stringer campaigns for mayor, the loss of his mother has been front and center. He believes that lived experience will give him added credibility and skill for a job he has been eyeing for years.  
   
"I am hellbent on making sure this recovery is going to matter, whether I am mayor, or whether i have 10 months as comptroller," Stringer said. "Everyday I get up and I say I have to do something, and that is in the name of all the people we lost and all the people who are still suffering in this city."