Day 6 Prompt: Earliest Memories
Pull one of the earliest memories you have from your childhood. Describe what you see, hear & feel.
I am going to share more than one story. It will help you understand a later story.
I was a really young child, probably around 3. I stepped on a bee and it hurt! I cried. My (biological) parents came out to see what was the matter and they held me, loved me and gave me support. Then they told me Scooby Doo was on the TV and I got completely distracted. No more crying. Just fun! I loved Scooby Doo.
My parents were the world to me. I felt loved. And in later days, I remembered that feeling.
Unfortunately not long after that, I was (as far as I was concerned) forcibly removed from my birth parents home and made to live with others. I was in foster care for a time, bounced around from family to family. There is a story behind why, but I did not understand it when I was a child. For a very long time and still to this day do not know if what I was told later is the truth or not. For now I accept what I was told as to why and how it happened, simply because it makes the most sense.
A year or so later, during the custody battle for me, the judge presiding over my case asked me who I would rather live with: My aunt and uncle or my Grandparents. I knew what it was like to live with my Aunt and Uncle. I chose my Grandparents. They seemed so nice.
Not long after that when I started living with my grandparents (age 4), I remember teaching myself how to read. I didn’t want my grandmother reading to me at bedtime. I didn’t want to be with her. I didn’t like her. I missed my mom. I remember feeling loved by her and this new “mother” in my life did not feel loving. I did not feel loved. I was very lonely and desperate to be loved. It set me down a bad path — path that ultimately I worked my way through to the other side… but that is a story for another time.