I didn't think you were trying to blame me, but that truth of who I already was at age 9 or 10 slammed into my consciousness and stunned me. Hours later, I still feel stunned - like the time I somersaulted off the porch and knocked my back so hard I couldn't catch my breath.
I don't know if I know something I am not writing, but I do know the moment will come when some of my speculation will become unspoken accusation, and I am afraid. Once it is written I can't take it back. Will I be hated? I have been turning it over in my mind, and I am nervous and nauseous. I am not ready to go there...
Because we moved every year I have vivid memories that I can place, because I can place the house we lived in. My earliest memory is of watching Indians dance on a cliff. I told mom about that once and she said I was 2 years old when we did that. I remember other things from those years. By the time I was 4, I have fairly uninterrupted memories. And I thought I had strong memories, which always made me curious in the face of yours and our next sister's total lack of recall. But I am beginning to realize that I have some serious memory lapses, too. Something happened that I don't recall.
First memory of abuse...I don't know. My mind swirls when I try to remember, or even when I try to identify abuse. I will have to sit patiently with this question for awhile. I am beginning to realize that I can't quite define abuse.....especially in relation to me.
OK, I remember oldest brother pushing me down the stairs on purpose when we were almost 2 and 3. I was standing on the top step and he calmly walked up and shoved me. I remember tumbling down fast, out of control. I landed in a basket of clean laundry with a nose bleed all over the clean clothes. That's not quite abusive, but it did mean I was not safe. But the memory might be bringing me closer to remembering. I remember he used to carry a big stick around and swing it at anyone who came too close. That is not normal behavior for a kid who's just learned to walk. Seems to me, he was already being abused.
I will sit with it...
I do have one amazing, very treasured memory. When I was 3, Grammy, Grampa Smoke and their youngest kids came to visit - probably because they knew Grampa Smoke was sick and not going to live very much longer. I can mentally and physically remember sitting on his lap. I had a balloon that had popped, and he was making "bubbles" for me to pop with my teeth. Did anyone do that for you when you were young? Suck air into a small corner of a popped balloon and twist it? Strange family!
Grampa Smoke died later that year of cirrhosis of the liver. He was an active alcoholic all of his adult life. He was the town drunk who fell asleep on his way home, and would sleep it off in public, according to the stories I have heard. But according to more of the stories - he recited poetry and played music and was the choir director - I get the sense of a very artistic, sensitive man who was in great pain. We drink to stop pain, and he obviously spent his life in agony. What did the older generation do to him, I wonder. Wondering that makes it easier for me to skip the question for me...my first recollection of abuse.
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