Reaching across time and space

Last night we celebrated Clara’s last meal as a ten year-old girl. She turns eleven today.

During dinner, Clara asked about the day she was born, so Elysha and I spent the rest of the meal telling Clara and then Charlie the stories of the days they were born. Both stories were lengthy, filled with amusing disagreements, stubborn deliveries, placental abruptions, multiple cheeseburgers, and more.

The kids asked a lot of questions, and we answered most of them.

The stories of those two memorable days, written on the day of their births and immediately thereafter, can also be found on my blog Greetings Little One, as well as within the six volumes of text that were created from the blog last year.

I’m happy to report that the stories are alive and well for our children and beyond.

But it got me thinking about the day I was born.

My mother passed away in 2007, so my link to that first day of my life is gone. Mom never told me much about the day I was born, and now that story is lost forever. All I have left is my baby book. It contains the newspaper clipping announcing my birth as well as tiny bits of information.

I was born on February 15, 1971 at 4:49 AM.

My eyes were grey. My hair was brown. I weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces. I was 19.5 inches long.

There was snow on the ground on the day I was born.

Under “Prominent People” on the day of my birth, my mother listed:

Ralph Nader
Charles Manson
Lt. William Calley
Richard Nixon

For the record, two of those people were mass murderers and one was a corrupt and disgraced President. Not exactly baby book material.

Under “Fashions and Fads,” Mom listed:

midi
maxi
headbands
bellbottoms
pant suits

Under “Family News,” Mom wrote:

Paulette (her sister) expecting 3-13-71
Memere (her grandmother or mine) preparing to leave for Georgia

There is a list of visitors to the hospital, which is mostly family whose names I recognize but a few that I do not. Friends of my mother and father, I suspect.

There’s also a last of gifts. Everything you would expect to see on a list like this, plus stranger items like sweater suits and a bunting set. Also the baby book from which I am reading now.

As I grew, Mom continued to write. I learned that I started speaking at 5 months, and my first word was “Daddy.”

I was eating cereal at one week, fruits and vegetables at one month, started drinking skim milk at three months, and started eating meat at four months.

Sounds bizarre by today’s standards. Right?

My favorite things included “sucking my thumb,” “baths in the tub with daddy,” and “playpen.”

Mom went on to write about the first six years of my life, summarizing each year on my birthday with a paragraph or two before stopping prior to my seventh birthday. She wrote about visits to zoos and trips to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. She wrote about the heart murmur detected during my fourth visit to the doctor and the bottle of paregoric (a regulated narcotic today) that I drank when I was 10 months old, which led to me having my stomach pumped. She wrote that I was a “jolly baby.” A “rebellious little boy.” A “handful.”

When I read these words, I read slowly. I treasure each and every one. They are like gold to me, because she is gone, and this is all that I have:

The few, scattered stories that she told me about my early days and this small collection of words, written by a 21 year-old mother whose husband had just returned from Vietnam.

They tell the small, incomplete story of a man and woman in love, spending time with their families and each other, loving their children and their lives together.

My mother and father would be divorced by my eighth birthday, so I don’t remember much of the love contained in this book. Most of these days are lost to me. Days when my parents loved each other and loved me. Days when we were together as a family.

I’m so grateful to have this little bit of personal history. The voice of my mother, reaching across time and space, telling me about how a snowstorm knocked out the power on my sixth birthday, forcing us to eat cream cake with my grandparents with us by candlelight. Reminding me of the puppy named Bruin that I found under my Christmas tree when I was two. Telling me about how fiercely and frustratingly independent I was at a very young age, leaving the home and roaming the fields and forests behind our home whenever possible.

It’s not much. And it tells nothing about the day I was born or my first day at school. It says nothing about my first baseball game or the first time my father threw me atop a horse. Things I wish Mom could tell me today.

We told Clara and Charlie the stores of their births last night while we ate dinner, and if they’ll listen, we’ll tell them again and again. Many times. We’ll tell them those stories and all the rest that we can remember and even the stories we can’t. The hundreds of thousands of words that I’ve written down and preserved in books and blogs, so that someday, through the magical, telepathic powers of the written word, I can reach across time and space and speak to my children again, and remind them about the love and joy and hilarity of our lives today, and hope and pray that it will be enough to answer all their questions and then some.

Happy birthday, little one. Ten was great, and I know eleven will be, too.