My Earliest Memory

Memories...

Fragments from our past that resurface from time to time to remind us of what once was. What will never again be.

Yeah, I know. I sound like a real downer. That happens when your childhood experience feels like a giant rip-off. Bitter? Hell yes I am. But before I go off on a rant that is better saved for Day 24, I am going to focus on the day's prompt that lies before me. This post is supposed to be about my earliest memory. Can I even pick on single, solitary moment? They all kind of run together into one big blur. Was that an actual memory? Was it a dream? Do I actually remember that moment or is it only because someone has talked about it so much that it feels like a memory. I knew this one was going to be difficult, I just didn't realize how much so...

Looking back at my childhood, the earliest memory that comes to mind was when my mother had her appendix out, and the memory itself is very foggy and fragmented. I may have been 2 or 3 at the time, the very oldest 4 and I feel that is stretching it. I had the mumps when I was 4 and I have a fairly good recollection of that. Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

My mother had appendicitis sometime within the first 4 years of my life. I have no memory of visiting her at the hospital, and I seriously doubt that I did. I don't even remember her not being at home, I just remember being told that she had surgery and was really sore and that I had to be gentle with her so I didn't hurt her. For a child of my age, I found it all very confusing, but I did as I was told. I remember her wearing her long sleeping gowns and her green fuzzy zip-up robe for several days and taking a lot of naps with her on our ugly green couch. The smell of sweat was an ever present scent, not over powering, but simply there. Which makes sense seeing as how she was always  bundled up and under a blanket, plus the heat from two bodies being curled up together. We both seemed to always have a fine band of perspiration along our hair lines as well, from the shared heat of the confined space.

My first memory is neither a bad memory nor a good one, it just simply is. Some people's first recollection may be of a life changing event, but mine is rather mundane. Part of me feels like I am cheating myself and my readers by not writing about a more momentous occasion, but it is what it is. This is my first memory.

This post is a part of a 30 Day Writing Challenge that I am participating in for the month of April.