My first time
My life has been odd to most people's standards. Many people would believe my life to be fiction if I told the whole story. Even the individual events would suspend belief. I often make light if it using references to Jerry springer. It's surreal.
My earliest memory, that i know for sure is mine and not remembered via someone else's story, is getting in a car. I was three or four, I was looking at the ground, concrete with little tiny rocks all over, when my mother asked me "what would you like to call him?" As I climbed into the backseat, she buckled me in. "Mr. Bob, uncle bob, daddy bob..." She gave me ideas. "Daddy? Can I call him daddy?" I asked. The joyful light that shown from my mother face at those words was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. It represented everything and everyone I wanted to be. It was pure love and happiness and pride and assurance that he was doing the right thing. I was happy when, trying to restrain her own gladness, so as to not make me feel pressured, she said "only if that's what you want." I nodded my head and said, "I do." That's when my mom and dad were really married. The legalities and ceremony came later, maybe that day or the next. I don't remember that part. But I know that had I not said I do, things would hve been different, 30 years later, I remember that day like it was today. I can still smell the smell of the car, the hatchback. I can feel the warmth of the seatbelt. I can see the hope on my mothers face. I know in my heart that daddy is the right thing to call him. Though he is not my real father, we are all meant for each other. For four years after, this day, though remembered, will stay off stage in my memory. When I accepted him as my daddy, it was fully. I loved that man, worshipped him really. My mother did too. And he thought we could do no wrong. Even when we did. So it was easy to forget that we chose each other me and him. It's normal for a husband and wife to choose each other. It's even kind of normal for a parent to choose a child. But it's not so often that a child chooses a parent. I did. I accepted him completely and fully with no limits, no boundaries.
That I why I forgot, pushed the memory under the surface. It is my first full memory. I suppose that means that I have known have to suppress my own memories from the beginning then. That is quite enlightening, considering my then future and now past. This one memory holds so much information about all three of us. But it was several years before it would be important to recall the occurrence and even longer before it became important to remember the emotional and sensory details so as to analyze their importance. The first happened when I was seven years old. The second, well, that is today.
It would beamy years before I learned that our acceptance of each other, bob and I, was an inaccurate reflected of how others treated each other and even more so, of how others felt we should feel towords one another. He was my daddy, the bravest, strongest, funnest, and most lovingiest man alive and I was his firstborn child, his daughter, and dare anyone say otherwise. It wasnt until many years later that I learned he fisted his own fathers face for barely insinuating I was less than completely his child. But, my heart knew that is how it was from the very beginning. Bob was a very rare person indeed. He made mistakes like every human man. He was not perfect. But a three year old girl knew and had no reservations. That is one of the very few choices I have made in my life that I have never questioned. It has never wavered and I don't mind the whole world knowing that my daddy was the first man to ever hold my heart and though he is gone, 22 years gone this may, he holds it ever still.
If the rest of my life were based on that one memory, the light and joy in my mothers face, the love between an mom and dad, and the choice my dad and I made to be each others' family, my life would have been a fairy tale. Unfortunately, fairy tales are only the worlds reflections of hope. They have no substance in the real world.
To tell about my life, I must tell one story at a time, maybe in order but probably not. The brain doesn't really work in such a linear fashion. But, I wanted to tell this story first for several reasons. First, becuase it is the first memory have, that makes it a logical starting point, doesn't it. Second, it is much more interesting than a typical citation on information found on my birth certificate, I hope you agree with me on that one. Third, that memory sets the stage for quite a few later events in my life. Every author knows that one must make proper use of foreshadowing. Lastly, most importantly, I wanted to start off with a memory that represents the things in life that I hold most dear, a mothers love, a child's trust, a woman's joy, peace of heart, honesty, faith, honor, warm sunshine and rainbows. Yes, I almost forgot (or perhaps saved it to add a dramatic flourish to the story that doesn't need any) the rainbow.
As my mother got in the car and put the key in the ignition, I pointed out the front window and said "mommy, look!! A rainbow, a real one!!" It might not have been the first rainbow I ever saw though in fairness in could have been. But, it is the first rainbow I ever remember seeing. No one needed to tell me that a higher power smiled that day. The beautiful rainbow said it all.