My Earliest Memory

It's always been strange to me how the most random things can trigger memories. A certain smell or sound or image can bring up something far back in the past. For me, a lot of times the trigger isn't even directly related to the memory. Now I can't even remember what made me even think about this, but it is my earliest memory.

I was 2 years old when my brother was born, but I can remember the day incredibly clearly. Not because I was excited or happy about getting a new brother, (I was, but I can't remember the day he was brought home at all) but because I was so terribly traumatized by what happened. Really my brother's birth is just incidental to this memory, because it indirectly caused the trauma.


Invasion of the Mommy Snatchers

It's March 1984 and I am 2 years old, we are living in a suburb of Nashville, TN. I have a vague recollection of my parents telling me for a while that I am getting a new brother, but I'm sure I have no idea of how exactly that is going to happen. I figure he is just going to show up at the door one day and we'll go run around in the yard or something. I wake up pretty early and, just like any other normal morning, I go into my parents room to lay down with Mom until she is ready to get up and fix my breakfast.

This was not a normal morning.

As I walk up to the bed I notice that Mom's hair appears to have gotten darker during the night. Instead of her usual blond hair on the pillow, I see black hair. I guess this was not terribly concerning to my 2 year old mind, because I continued on. I think I was a strange kid, because I wouldn't just climb in bed. According to my parents I would always just stand by the bed and stare until they woke up and put me in bed. I imagine this was kind of a distrubing way to be woken up until you got used to it. Anyway, I remember doing this same thing on the morning in question. The thing is it was not my mom who turned over and looked at me.

I don't really remember the exact details of what happened next, but I do clearly remember paralyzing fear. I remember thinking that someone had taken my mom. It took a while before I calmed down enough to realize that this was one of my parents' friends. Evidently my brother decided to come in the middle of the night, and he didn't just show up at the door like I thought. Apparently Mom had to go to the hospital to get him, and they didn't want to take me with them. So this nice lady was going to stay with me until my grandparents could come up from Alabama.

As I said I have no real memory of my brother coming home from the hospital. In fact, I don't have any clear memories at all until several years later. I'm sure the only reason I have any memory of this day is that I don't think I have ever been as scared as I was that morning.