The First Memory

They planted a seed on November 28, 1972. A spark of life injected into the belly of a woman who would become my mother on August 28, 1973. That's me. That lump of flesh spilling forth in a deluge of feminine ooze. The doctor pulls me out, holds me up, and slaps my ass. Of course, that is all based on assumption. I don't remember anything about that day, really. I don't think I would want to. There have been too many already, and one more might just be too much to take.

This condition of involuntary amnesia continued for the next eighteen months, and reappeared sporadically for the better part of my first five years. Flashes of instances spurred by the photographs in the big red photo album that used to sit on the living room shelf - and is now locked away in some trunk at my sister's house - exist in memory like images of old dreams. The grass outside a hotel in Michigan bobbed and jolted under tiny white feet as the man with the wiry black hair smiled and urged me closer. The voice of the mother encouraging behind, "Go to daddy!"

It's not real. There is no sense of self involved, rather participant-observation. The ground moves and the feet hurt and the faces and voices are familiar, but I have no idea that these are my parents watching me take my first steps. I didn't learn that until I looked at the picture in the red book.

No photograph exists of the first real one. That's how I know it's real. There is nothing to remind me of it, and there is no hint of the adult self rendering the memory.

There I am. Lying half naked on a plastic coated foam mattress of the white-painted crib. The diaper is dry, as is the mouth. The room is dark except for the blue glow of the television in the living room, bouncing around the corner and through the open bedroom door. Voices came from that direction, but I only recognized one. The female. Mommy.

Rolling and shifting onto the knees, the baby boy rests his head against the round wooden support bars of the crib, and an image moves through his head. The head pushes through the space between the bars, but it can't come back through. The baby is stuck, and he'll have to cry for mommy. So he pulls himself up and stands leaning against the rail. Another image, this time of the mother bringing a cup of water and the baby drinking and perhaps being held. But the mind of one so young does not think in words, nor can he speak in pictures. So I spoke the only two words I knew, "Mommy! Water!" Of course, it came out more like "Mama wah wah," and I remember thinking that I wasn't saying it right. So I said it again, louder this time, and it came out the same, and I realized that I did not know how to speak, yet, and I started to cry.

I saw myself as a person and consciously directed my actions with a full understanding of strengths and weaknesses and the fact that there would be more to learn. If that's not figuring out what it means to be a person, then perhaps it's time to reevaluate what I think I know.