Early on weekday mornings, my mother-in-law boarded one bus in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, then switched to another for the 90-minute trip to our apartment in Forest Hills, Queens. Now just past 65, Antoinette Chirichella suffered from severe osteoarthritis that forced her to walk with a waddle. She had only recently retired from her job as a seamstress in a factory. She had hunched over a sewing machine for 47 years — a career started when she dropped out of eighth grade at age 14 to help support her family of six — and raised her only child by herself. Now she was reporting for duty in the highest of callings: to take care of her two grandchildren for the day. Our kids knew her as grandma, while everyone else called her Nettie.  Antoinette Chirichella with granddaughter Caroline. Courtesy of Bob Brody She would arrive at the front door to our apartment, thereby instantly freeing my wife, Elvira, and me to go to our full-time jobs.…