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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: First Memory
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
On another post we have been remembering things of our youth which made me wonder what is your earliest memory? Mine is looking at shadows on a wall. I am sure it was from my grandfather's farm house when he still had lantern light before electricity.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I have been put down for my afternoon nap in my cot in my parent's room. I am lying watching the pattern of sunlight through the net curtain on the ceiling. Aged about two.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I am standing, holding onto one of the table's legs, looking at the light that comes through the window. I'm 1,5.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I 'think' I can remember lying in a carrycot in the back of my grandfather's Austin 7. If that is a false memory because my mother has told me about the way I looked at her like I knew what was going on, I can definitly remember being small enough to be sitting up in a pram looking at the birds in my dad's aviary. He came up behind me (just home from work I imagine) and gave me a kiss.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Briefly waking up in my pram, lying on my back, unable to turn over, my eyes not in focus.
Briefly waking up at night in my cot, lying on my back, unable to turn over; the sound of my parents talking in the next room. Not being able to think or articulate, just aware of surroundings, feeling content.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I was about two and a half. I know this because my sister wasn't there, and it was summer. There was a family we were friends with, where the father (of two sons) was very keen on photography. We children had had baths together - the boys were very young, too. I don't remember that.
We were in a park with a lake, and Uncle George wanted to pose us by the lake, with the boys holding sticks as though they were fishing, and me watching with interest. I remember looking down the bank of the lake into a tiny cove with a tiny beach, and thinking it would suit fairies. (This does not show in the photo, so validating this as real memory.) But I also remember asking if I could hold a stick, too, and being told with emphasis by the older of the boys that "girls can't fish". And I remember wondering what it was about boy's difference from girls (remember I knew about that) that determined that, and feeling angry, because I thought they had made their rule up.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Golden honeycomb on a blue formica table. I can't date this memory at all, but my grandfather was a beekeeper and honeycomb wouldn't have been an unusual sight at home. My memory is of being astonished as though I was seeing it for the first time.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
My earliest memories are from lower school, with 3 incidents in particular, but I can't recall which came first. One was the hurricane of 1987, when I had to walk home with my mum and sisters. One was having to move some boxes around, but no one would pick up the other end and I dropped a wooden box on my toe. The other was a day when we had to bring in one of our favourite toys and I brought in one of these, but no one else was interested in it, so I wandered around the playground rather forlornly.
Earliest memory of the wider world was being made to watch the news in November 1989, as the Berlin Wall was coming down. My dad told me "you need to watch this; it's important."
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I think my earliest really strong memory is of being invited to someone's birthday party when I was about three, waiting for half-past three to come and thinking it never would.
The only explanation I have for why the memory is so relatively late is that having been born with congenital cataracts, I was very short-sighted (nearly blind in fact), and until they were discovered and treated (shortly before I started school*), visual memories were, of necessity, somewhat fuzzy.
* How it took them so long is one of Life's Little Mysteries™ - I'd have thought they were glaringly obvious.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
I remember arriving at the old Union Station in downtown Ottawa. I would have been nearly 3. Then I remember being sat outside of my ma tante's house in the backyard. I was enjoying myself nicely, but was attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes - significant bites. My screams bought most of the adults in the house out. I was slathered in butter to ameliorate the stings (I know, I know, but this was 1951) and then cradled in my one-armed Grand'maman's lap. She had just arrived to see me and my twin for the first time and I remembered Granny (her eldest daughter) being horrified. Grand'maman just cuddled and cooed until I was comforted.
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Even more so than I was before
Posts: 20466 | From: No longer where I was | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kitten
Shipmate
# 1179
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Posted
I remember sitting cross legged on a the dark orange semi-circular rug in front of the fire being told that I was going to have a new brother or sister. I was wearing a rose pink, A-line dress with large white spots and a white collar that buttoned up the back (I loathed that dress). I must have been about two and a half.
I also remember very clearly the day said brother was born, even down to what I had for dinner that day
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Maius intra qua extra
Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they are in a big blue box
Posts: 2330 | From: Carmarthenshire | Registered: Aug 2001
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Tree Bee
Ship's tiller girl
# 4033
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Posted
Having stayed with my grandparents while my sister was born at home my first memory is standing tip toed to peer over the side of her pram, parked in our hallway.
She was asleep which disappointed me so I asked Mum if I could wake her up. She replied that I would see her awake enough times in the future.
I was 3 and a week.
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"Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple."
— Woody Guthrie
http://saysaysay54.wordpress.com
Posts: 5257 | From: me to you. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
A good way of identifying actual memories from reconstructed ones is scale. I have a vivid picture of a patch of rough grass with docks and thistles up close - as they would be to a toddler. This was the field next where we lived at the time, normally the home of Paddy McKenna's donkey.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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jedijudy
Organist of the Jedi Temple
# 333
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Posted
My second birthday was very memorable because I was terrified of my Great-Great Aunt. She told me she was going to get some 'disappearing pills' so we could run away together. My parents never knew why I was so frightened that day until I was in my thirties and shared the memory with them.
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Jasmine, little cat with a big heart.
Posts: 18017 | From: 'Twixt the 'Glades and the Gulf | Registered: Aug 2001
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St. Gwladys
Shipmate
# 14504
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Posted
Being in an old fashioned pram and being introduced to a friend of my mother, my Dad pushing me in a toddler swing so that I could see where my mother worked on the other side of the valley (he worked shifts, and I used to stay with my grandparents), Sloop John B, Kennedy's assassination.
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"I say - are you a matelot?"
"Careful what you say sir, we're on board ship here"
From "New York Girls", Steeleye Span, Commoners Crown (Voiced by Peter Sellers)
Posts: 3333 | From: Rhymney Valley, South Wales | Registered: Jan 2009
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Pigwidgeon
Ship's Owl
# 10192
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Posted
When I was just a little more than 2 my family was on vacation, and we were all sitting on a dock that extended into a lake. I fell off into the water, and my father jumped in after me. I don't think he ever quite forgave me for ruining his brand new slacks -- even though my mother pointed out that I was close enough he could have just reached out and pulled me from the water. I don't remember my impromptu swim, but I remember being wrapped in a towel and the feel of the water that had gone down my nose.
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"...that is generally a matter for Pigwidgeon, several other consenting adults, a bottle of cheap Gin and the odd giraffe."
~Tortuf
Posts: 9835 | From: Hogwarts | Registered: Aug 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
A good way of identifying actual memories from reconstructed ones is scale. I have a vivid picture of a patch of rough grass with docks and thistles up close - as they would be to a toddler. This was the field next where we lived at the time, normally the home of Paddy McKenna's donkey.
Probably safer than being in a field next to Paddy McGinty's goat.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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moonfruit
Shipmate
# 15818
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Posted
I remember my sister being born, when I was 3 and a half - but only because I got my first lego set. In a red briefcase style box.
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All I know is that you came and made beauty from my mess.
Posts: 180 | From: Just outside the M25 | Registered: Aug 2010
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
I think my earliest memory consists of me having found a pair of my father's shoes (I don't actually remember that part). But I decided to put the shoes on my hands and then go down the stairs with them on. Specifically, I crawled down the stairs, head first with the shoe-clad hands leading the way. I recall only getting a couple of steps down before I stopped. Or somebody stopped me. I don't recall which.
I have no idea how old I was. I think I was capable of walking (it was just that crawling down the stairs was the only practical way to do it). Maybe 2 or 3 years old.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Dogwalker
Shipmate
# 14135
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Posted
When I was very small, my parents used to put me and my brothers in the car, and we'd go visit my mother's cousin, who lived in an apartment. It was a long ride, to my mind.
One day when I was in third or fourth grade (say 9 or 10 years old), I was walking to school, and I realized I was walking past the apartment! It was less than a mile from home.
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My father-in-law died recently, aged 100 years and 6 months. I asked him this question once. He remembered sitting on his father's shoulders, watching the soldier's parade at the end of World War I.
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If God had meant for us to fly, he wouldn't have given us the railways. - Unknown
Posts: 155 | From: Milford, MA, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Snipping flowers in the backyard of my parents house with the only grandparent I ever knew. I was trying to get my thumb and forefinger through scissors to cut sweet peas which were soft purple. My gramma's eyes were bright blue.
It is these colours of purple and blue, and her soft, gentle, accented voice I recall as clearly as if it were this morning. I prefer to think of these memories as new, and renewed every time they are remembered, with a gentle sense of gramma's presence with me; such ideas frightened my great aunt after gramma died. She like to call me a heathen and pray earnestly for me in right in front of me. Which is something that does make little boys think very heathenish things and then say things that result in no cake for supper.
I can pair this with the bad memory of being sat on by my father, while he pulled porcupine quills out of my feet, thereafter pulling others out of the dog's nose. I've had an alliance with dogs ever since against people holding pliers.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Generally I'm lucky if I can remember yesterday but I can recall being in my cot in the bedroom I shared with my brothers. I was probably 2 or thereabouts.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
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What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
My granddad made a beautiful doll's house for me and unwrapping it is be my first memory. If it was my birthday I would have been four, if it was Christmas, three and a half.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I remember being little enough to prefer crawling over walking, and sampling from the cat's kibble while she crunched beside me. I remember some adult-- probably mom-- dragging me away, and sneaking back to get more.
More nostalgically, I remember lying in my crib and looking up at my older sister, who was between five and six at the time. She had long platinum blonde hair, and it dangled within my reach, and I kept playing with it. At some point she got called away, and I remember being dissapointed at her going.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
I remember the neighborhood ladies sitting around the dining room table cutting up the table linen and bedsheets into strips. I didn't know why, but many years later I learned that they were making bandages to help the War Effort. (World War II)
On the first day of school (kindergarten), one little boy cried so hard that they had to carry him out of the room on his chair -- he couldn't be extricated from it! Many years later, at our 50th high school reunion, I reminded him of that day. He said he remembered it well and delights telling the story to his grandchildren.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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georgiaboy
Shipmate
# 11294
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Posted
My 'earliest memory' turns out to be a complete fiction!
I can VERY clearly remember the night our coal house burned. I stood in the back yard with my mother and aunt, and watched. I can remember how my bare feet got cold and the wind blowing around my nightshirt.
Problems with this?
- I never wore a nightshirt, always pajamas.
- I would not have been allowed outside without some sort of shoes.
- And best of all, THE FIRE OCCURRED THE MONTH BEFORE I WAS BORN!
I can only assume that frequent telling and re-telling of the incident implanted it in my memory. Which still doesn't explain the nightshirt! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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You can't retire from a calling.
Posts: 1675 | From: saint meinrad, IN | Registered: Apr 2006
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Barnabas Aus
Shipmate
# 15869
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Posted
My first memory is of being in the cottage hospital for removal of tonsils and adenoids, aged about 2. One of the nurses had given me a plain biscuit to eat, and I had just taken my first bite when the doctor spotted me and took it away because I was scheduled for surgery that afternoon.
The next is of riding up the NSW Blue Mountains in a passenger train with my grandfather driving. As he retired when I was just over 3, it must have been sometime close to that event. He later gave me a clockwork train for my 4th birthday, and 61 years later, the bug still has hold of me.
Posts: 375 | From: Hunter Valley NSW | Registered: Sep 2010
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RainbowGirl
Apprentice
# 18543
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Posted
As a young toddler, I'd guess around 2 chasing a ball around our backyard (on a property), I'm assuming my parents weren't watching closely as the ball went under a fence and I followed it. I lay on my tummy going under to grab it, and pushed up to crawl backwards and hit the lowest electric wire on the fence. Flattened down away from the pain and then did the same thing 4-5 more times while screaming until a parent pulled me out backwards.
I had to have been very young as the only paddock that bordered the house yard is and has always been for alpaca crias, and it has an extra low fence wire strung along the bottom, there was enough space for me to go under it flat and only touch it when I pushed up.
Posts: 32 | From: Australia | Registered: Jan 2016
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Lothlorien
Ship's Grandma
# 4927
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Posted
Ouch, Rainbow Girl. I remember how long I could feel the shock in my hand when I grabbed the wrong wire on an electric fence.
I waited outside St James Anglican Church at Croydon for my dad to collect me after Sunday School one Sunday afternoon. I was about 18 months old. My mother did not believe me till I described my dress, right down to the little gold brooch with my name on it.
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Buy a bale. Help our Aussie rural communities and farmers. Another great cause needing support The High Country Patrol.
Posts: 9745 | From: girt by sea | Registered: Aug 2003
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basso
Ship’s Crypt Keeper
# 4228
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Posted
I'm in the sleeping porch in our San Francisco apartment. I'm standing up and peering at the blinds, and the cord. I remember the sense of combined adventure/daring and guilt at not taking the nap that I knew I was supposed to be.
I have scattered memories of San Francisco streets from a little later. And there's a crystal-clear memory of my third birthday party. It was my sister's second -- she was born 366 days after me -- and our mom had made a sheet cake with chocolate frosting and numerals '2' and '3' at each end, made in those rock-hard silver decorating balls.
I could already read that much by that age, so I knew what I was looking at. I can pretty well see my sister across the table. There were neighbor kids there, too, who are ghostly memories around the edges. I have no memory at all of any adults being there.
Posts: 4358 | From: Bay Area, Calif | Registered: Mar 2003
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by georgiaboy:
... frequent telling and re-telling of the incident implanted it in my memory ...
That sort of thing happens in families; about 20 years ago, my sister phoned me late one evening from our parents' house where she and her family were visiting.
"I need to you settle an argument", she said, "What year was it we had that holiday in Cornwall?"
"I think it was 1959," I replied, "but I can say with certainty that it was before 1962, because I wasn't there".
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I remember a big orange wall with the sun shining on it. It was from when I had my tonsils removed, and I was 3 or 4 years old.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
I was 3. My mother was a Nixon (!) campaign worker (this bit of family shame I obviously learned later). It was time to pick up my older brother from kindergarten. Mom got into the front seat and I in the back (no seat belts in those days) and started the car, which was parked in the driveway with a slight incline. The phone rang, mom left the car in drive and ran into the house to answer it. I jumped into the front seat to pretend I was driving the car. I somehow moved the gear shift into gear. I remember my surprise when the car started moving (backing down the driveway). I remember jumping back into the backseat and ducking down so I wouldn't be seen. Car backed out of driveway, across the street, and crashed into neighbor's tree. I remember going into the house and being a bit dazed, going into my bedroom while mom had a conversation with our grumpy neighbor.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Dormouse
Glis glis – Ship's rodent
# 5954
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Posted
I have two memories from my childhood - not sure which is the earliest..
One is sitting on the worktop in the kitchen, listening to "Listen With Mother" on the radio.
The other is looking out of the window waiting for my brother to come home from school. As he is only two years older than I am, I assume this was probably when I was 4 and he was 6.
But as I find it difficult to remember what I did last Saturday the fact I remember either of these is fairlyamazing!
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What are you doing for Lent?
40 days, 40 reflections, 40 acts of generosity. Join the #40acts challenge for #Lent and let's start a movement. www.40acts.org.uk
Posts: 3042 | From: 'twixt les Bois Noirs & Les Monts de la Madeleine | Registered: May 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
I remember the taste of gripe water!
When my son was a baby he was very colicky and I got some for him. I remembered the taste instantly! My Mum said 'no wonder, you had plenty of it!'
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
A good way of identifying actual memories from reconstructed ones is scale. I have a vivid picture of a patch of rough grass with docks and thistles up close - as they would be to a toddler. This was the field next where we lived at the time, normally the home of Paddy McKenna's donkey.
My grandparents had a mirror which hung above the fireplace in the bedroom. When they died, my uncle inherited it. I have no idea where it was hung in his flat. When he died, I inherited it.
I hung it just below our ceiling. My husband pointed out that I had hung it too high for anyone to look straight at it. I realised that I had hung it so that I had to crane my neck up at it at the same angle as I'd had to crane my neck when I was 4. I had recreated my memory of it.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I remember the taste of gripe water!
When my son was a baby he was very colicky and I got some for him. I remembered the taste instantly! My Mum said 'no wonder, you had plenty of it!'
So do I! And I wanted to taste it again, so went and bought some! But the brand we had, Dinnefords, isn't around here, and Woodwards didn't taste the same. I would quite like it as a drink!
Turns out that it had, as well as dill and caraway, alcohol!
[ 05. February 2016, 12:15: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Nenya
Shipmate
# 16427
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Posted
I have two or three memories of being in my pushchair, probably around the age of 2. A memory that's easier to date is one of going with my mum to a house I didn't know and playing on the floor in a room with white walls while she sat on a bed under the window and talked to the lady in it. In later years in discussion with my mum she told me I'd gone with her to visit her mother, my grandmother, on her deathbed and when I described it to her we realised that was what the memory was. That grandmother died when I was 2.
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They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
Posts: 1289 | Registered: May 2011
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Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829
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Posted
As recently as 2012 I spoke to someone who clearly remembered hiding under the kitchen table as Zeppelins droned overhead.
AG
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"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869
Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
We lived in a boat until I was 2 and I have a couple of memories from there.
One was having the curtains drawn back and being peered down on by the big faces of strangers. I think they must have been there to see my parents and wanted to see the baby. They woke me up and frightened me. When I repeated this to my parents much, much later, I remembered that I slept on a bunk in a little alcove in the living area with my dresses hanging over my bunk, which was something they had never told me.
Second memory is my cup being fried. This boat had a tiny galley with solid fuel cooker (again a detail no-one told me, but I just knew), mother frying bacon in a pan, father reaching my plastic cup down from above the oven and dropping it into the frying pan. The cup had a straw on one side. It was quite exciting, and the cup had scarring down the side for ever more.
I also remember seeing swans through portholes and being quite excited.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I have a clear memory of being up on my pram seat, on top of the Silver Cross-type pram with my baby brother inside, underneath me. He was only just over a year younger than me - I could have been no more than two.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
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Posted
I remember pulling myself up, leaning on the bars of my cot and shouting for attention as I had been sick on my new red nightdress! I was about two, possibly even younger.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I've been trying to push my memory back to before my sister was born, when I was very nearly three, without much success. I do remember mum being pregnant, though, and going to see a nurse in an office with her - and trying to hide so I could jump out and say "Boo" at my dad when he came in. And I remember getting a nurse's outfit, so I could "help".
I also remember mum actually giving birth - she was in the front room at home. Everybody had forgotten about me, and I was listening behind the door in the hallway. It put me off having babies for life!
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I remember going to nursery school for the first time when I was a month shy of my second birthday. My brother who was fifteen months older than I usually went to nursery school, but he was quite sick and my mother asked if she could bring me instead. We walked down the side of the street that we didn't usually walk down, and this was very exciting.
When we got there the woman who ran the nursery school said the things that adults frequently said to children they had just met. I was quite shy, and I wished very intensely that she would shut up. I stared at my feet. I could see the front of my red dress with the white buttons all down the front. My shoes were brown leather, ankle high shoes.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
My earliest memories would be aged between one and half and three. Interestingly the first two are of my inability to do things, rather than about the people I lived with. All my life I have been task oriented rather than person oriented.
I am scared of the enormous (to me) heavy wooden swinging door between the kitchen and the living room. I am told repeatedly not to go near it on my own as I will "get skittled". I may not have been walking long.
I follow my mother along the L shaped verandah of our old country house. She disappears through a screen door and it swings shut behind her. I am frustrated because no matter how hard I try, I can't get it open. (When I relayed these to her as the only memories I have of the first house I lived in, her comment was "Oh, that door to the laundry at the end of the verandah always stuck.")
The only other memory I have before the age of three is running into my grandfather's bedroom, where he always sat in a chair with me on his lap to tell me stories, only to find the room empty. I was calling out for him, because my parents had tried to explain on the drive over that Pa wasn't there any more. I remember clearly my parents embarrassment, my grandmother's distress and my own bewilderment. This memory is the longest one. My grandmother picked me up and sat me on the kitchen bench. She tried to explain to me that Pa had gone to heaven. I asked where that was, and could we go too? She told me God loved Pa so much that he wanted him there. I clearly remembering arguing with her that we loved Pa too, and wanted him here. At which point my grandmother burst into tears and my parents whisked me away. They were very angry with me in the car. We moved away across three states soon after. It was never spoken of again, and my grandfather not mentioned in front of me for many years.
Interestingly my older sister (who mostly looked after me) left home around the same time, yet I have no memory of that at all.
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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
I can just remember the Christmas after my second birthday, so I would have been two years and three months. It was freezing cold and my parents had just moved into a tiny caravan that was our home for six months.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Smudgie
Ship's Barnacle
# 2716
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Posted
I think my two oldest memories are of visiting people.
I have a very vivid memory of visiting my grandfather (with whom I had no real relationship at all). When we arrived at the door there was always barking and we had to wait until the man who lived with grandad (who turned out many years later to be my uncle) took the dog into the back room so it wouldn't frighten me. Then we went into a fairly dark front room and I sat on a big leather sofa with my legs sticking out in front of me. My grandad had two tins on the mantlepiece, one with chocolates for the dog and the other with chocolates or mints for humans and I was allowed to have one. Sad that he was the only grandparent still living when I was born and that this is the only memory I have of him, but lovely that I do have one memory. I must have been in the latter half of my second year.
The more amazing memory was from even younger. In more recent years I was talking with my mum about some friends of theirs who had moved away when I was about two and with whom we still had very occasional contact but never visited. I suddenly said "Was it their house where...." and went on to describe their former lounge perfectly and in some detail. My mum just stood there saying, "But you can't remember that... you were still only in your pushchair when they moved away!" It's amazing not because I was so young but more because it wasn't a significant memory. I can understand remembering my grandfather's lounge because he was my grandfather and the visits must have happened on several occasions and because the atmosphere was always a bit weird - not least because it made me feel very small (and I feel very small whenever I remember it). But the Whites' house was just a house we visited and I remember nothing else about it or them.
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Miss you, Erin.
Posts: 14382 | From: Under the duvet | Registered: Apr 2002
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