My first memory

Do you remember what your first memory was?

According to most research the majority of people don't have memories before the age of 3 or 4. Freud called it "childhood amensia." We are blank slates before that. Perhaps it's because up to that age we are learning so much, learning new words, how to walk, how to be a person. I really have no idea on the whys.

This is just a preamble to the main topic of this post. My first memory. It's not a linear memory, where I can remember this happened, than that...like you normally remember something. It's only years later, when I connect it to other events that I know what the memory was of.

I can't be more than three. We were living in New Jersey. That's where my brother was born. He's about a year and a half younger than I am. It's also where my other brother was born. Joseph Patrick. He didn't live.

This is my first memory. I remember these large people in our home, our apartment, crying and carrying on. As a child at that age I don't remember too much about what was going on. It's one of those memories that I can still feel, nothing concrete, it's like a movie in slow motion. All these people walking around and crying and hugging while I was on the ground staring up at them, not sure of what was going on.

It was years later that I fit things together and realized that I must be remembering his death. I actually don't know what he died of, but I know he only lived about a week. It had to have been heartbreaking for my parents, but as a child I don't really remember much of it. We were living in the same apartment complex as my Dad's parents at the time. We didn't live in New Jersey long, my Dad was driving a bus than, but he soon joined the Navy and we ended up back in Memphis where he had met my Mom.

It's strange how memories work. This is one of those things I imagine now and than at the oddest times, it comes on me and I remember it but I really don't completely.