Earliest Memories

I'm starting a meme of sorts. A friend and I were talking about our 3 year-olds and what they'll remember from this part of their lives. That got us started trying to determine what our earliest memories were. I figured it would be an interesting topic for blogging as well.

What is your very first memory?

The first memory I have is when I'm about 3 years-old. My grandfather drove a big rig back then. He only worked locally, so he'd park his truck in the field by the house. He and my grandmother lived on land that had been in my family for years and years. My mom lives there now, in the same house her grandfather built by hand.

Anyway, it was in the fall and my grandfather had borrowed a flat-bed trailer to take all of the local kids on a hayride. I don't remember specifics except that I rode in the cab with him for most of the time, standing on the seat beside him. He drove to a bonfire where everyone ate s'mores and hot dogs.

My grandfather (my mom's stepdad) and I were pretty close when I was little. My mom lived with him and my grandmother after I was born. I was 3 when she married my stepdad and we moved to Indiana. I remember that I spent most of my time sitting on my grandfather's lap in the rocking chair, or standing beside him on the seat of his truck. Sometimes it would be his dump truck if he only had to do a delivery in-town. (For a while, he delivered stone and sand to and from construction sites) He would introduce me to the construction crew and let me look at all the different tractors.

Other times we would be riding up to the local gas station so I could pick out a little treat -- usually a piece of candy or one of those cheap little plastic toys.

Sometimes we would drive out to see his parents, who lived in a town about 40 minutes away. The trip was always the same, always stopping at the same shop for ice cream, always saying the same thing when we passed by Rock Mills. We would always pass a used car lot too. For as long as I can remember there was a bright red '62 Cadillac convertible that sat on the corner of the lot. He would always say that I should drive a car like that when I turned 16. That was a good car to have, he said.

My grandfather died when I was a junior in high school. He had gotten lung cancer and passed away only two months after his diagnosis. I was living away at school at the time when my parents called saying that they were picking me up and we were driving to Alabama that day. We got in late that night to find him withered away -- he looked so little for a man that stood about 6'2" -- and mostly incoherent. He came to for a few minutes and recognized us and smiled before he drifted off again.

The next morning my mom and dad took turns sitting alongside his bed in the living room. My grandmother needed a break to get some rest. At one point they needed to do something so they called me in to take their place. I sat there and just a few minutes later my grandfather woke up. He looked out in front of him and raised his hand as if reaching for something. He kept straining to reach whatever he was seeing. Then he smiled and relaxed back on his pillow. A few seconds later, his eyes flashed open and he took a gigantic breath. He held that breath for what seemed like forever and then he let it out in a loud sound that I could only interpret as a belch at that time. (Later, I would learn it was the death rattle.) I sat there in shock, not sure what I had seen or what I should do next. I remember walking into the kitchen to tell my parents what I'd seen. A few minutes later they announced that he had passed on.

Although I had never seen anything like it, I felt a sense of calm during that moment. Maybe it was the fact that he was in so much pain up until that point. Maybe it was that look on his face, that smile at whatever he'd seen. Maybe it was the fact that I had been there with him when it happened. Either way, that was the first death experience I'd had as a child and I think it set the precedent for how I would later deal with death. Years later, when other family members, and even some friends, passed away, I remember experiencing that same sense of calm. Pain, yes, and definitely tears of longing, but a sense of calm. In an odd way, it was almost like a final gift he had given me. He had allowed me to share in his final moments and see death for what it was. The idea of death being something completely physical with a hint of mystery was much more comforting to me than thinking that something completely unknown could, on a whim, suddenly come and take away something you love.

While all of my later childhood memories involved my mother and stepdad and siblings, my earliest ones were of me and my PawPaw.