Some Things, A Mother Never Forgets
By Ashlee Gadd
@ashleegadd
They won’t remember this.
It’s a balm I offer myself on days when all patience has dried up by noon and I’m counting down till bedtime before the baby’s even napped. The days when I snap more than hug, reprimand more than smile; the days where I care more about the cleanliness of my floors than the state of my children’s hearts.
You know what I tell myself on those days?
They won’t remember this.
Meet my greatest false sense of security, a consolation, a lie. At the root of this falsehood is a desperate attempt to convince myself that whatever I said or did in any specific moment is forgettable (and, therefore, forgivable!). No long-term consequences here.
Hello, denial.
Although, technically, there is some truth to this. Scientists have been researching and studying the phenomenon of childhood amnesia for decades, which—if you’re not familiar—is the term used to describe our inability to remember particular circumstances or events from when we were young. One article I read stated most adults cannot recall memories before the age of two, with only a fragmented recollection of events that happened between the ages of three and seven.
A fragmented recollection of events.
Between the ages of three and seven.
They won’t remember this.
I might as well be in the garden, a snake whispering in my ear. What a trap.
***
My earliest memory is of the Northern California 1989 earthquake. I was three years old, watching Sesame Street when it happened. My mom placed me under the kitchen table and ran upstairs to get my brother from his crib. I remember sitting on the linoleum floor, holding onto the legs of the table as the whole house rattled.
Most of the rest of my childhood is a blur, splintered recollections of moments and people, places and things. I have faded (but blissful) memories of rollerblading, riding my bike, and playing street hockey in the cul de sac. I remember summers spent with my best friend, stuffing water balloons in our bathing suit tops. We’d let our otter pops completely melt so we could pretend they were vials of magic potion. Like most kids, “pretend” was our game of choice. In the pool, I’d become a mermaid, my blond-green hair swirling around me while my fingers turned to prunes. At recess, five of us pretended to be the Spice Girls, performing regular dance routines for our peers secretly hoping to catch the attention of our latest crushes. Those boys later bought us matching flower necklaces from the gift shop at Outdoor Ed. Success.
My memories get deeper and clearer into junior high and high school, most of them wrapped up in some form of shame or embarrassment or rejection, which I really hope is normal. But my childhood? Elementary school? The ages my children are now? It’s largely a blur.
Depending on the day, this information is a coin to be flipped. Heads or tales—relief or sadness. I find comfort in knowing my seven-year-old probably won’t remember with crystal clarity that one time (37 times?) I stood in the doorway of his room howling about legos all over his floor. But what about the good stuff? Like the day we got ice cream for no reason, the times we read Harry Potter curled up in my bed, all of our afternoon art sessions at the dining room table?
Will he forget all of that, too?
***
“Are we going to the trail where the stroller fell down the hill?”
We are sitting in the kitchen discussing the possibility of a much-needed outing, a trip to the river where we can ride bikes and throw rocks in the water, far away from the news and Google classrooms. We are desperate for a break, to get out of this house just for an hour or two to find our sanity again.
My seven-year-old asks the question plainly, innocently, as if asking for another snack.
I look at him for a second, brows raised, before clarifying: “Do you actually remember that?”
He says yes—he does remember falling down the hill in the stroller.
I’m not sure I believe him; he was only two years old at the time. Granted, the event would be considered traumatic by anyone’s standards. Possibly 1989 earthquake level. I would know; I can still hear the sound of a tire rolling on gravel. The visual of my double stroller falling down that hill toward the river will haunt me until the day I die. How could I ever forget my worst day as a mother? My own body won’t let me forget—I have a purple scar on my hip from where I fell, chasing after it.
I see that scar every time I undress, every time I take a shower. Sometimes when I rinse soap off my body, I flashback to the night it happened, watching blood swirl down the shower drain while my entire body shook with sobs at the horror of my own carelessness, at every what if? pinging through my brain.
Some things, a mother never forgets.
***
Jill Christman once wrote, “The story we think we know has more to do with the telling, and retelling, than it does with memory.”
I’ve been writing emails to my kids during this time in quarantine, trying to record history with words and photos, preemptively offering answers for any future, “What was it like during the Coronavirus?” questions.
My children (as I write this) are one, five, and seven years old. We are living in a global pandemic and I think only one of them will remember it in any capacity.
I still don’t know how or when we’ll get to the other side of this. But I believe we will get there, and, when we do, much of our children’s memories will rely on the telling and retelling of what it was like.
And so, this what I will tell them:
The world felt scary. A lot of people died, a lot of people got sick, a lot of people lost their jobs. At the grocery store, everyone wore masks and stood on pieces of blue tape six feet apart in the checkout line. Imagine empty freeways and empty parking lots and empty toilet paper aisles. The emptiness would swallow you whole if you stared at it too long.
But then, there was home.
We clung to each other. No matter how hard I tried (I didn’t try that hard), I couldn’t make a schedule we could stick to. You boys went from legos to the trampoline, to art at the dining room table, back to legos. You became the cruise directors of your own days, and I was impressed with the itinerary you put together. We lived in the backyard, barefoot, sweaty, never more grateful for green grass and a faded trampoline. Your baby sister toddled about, leaving a constant trail of drool and empty sandwich bags in her wake (the one kitchen drawer we had yet to babyproof).
Your dad worked at my little writing desk, surrounded by fake plants and gold candles. I worked from the car, parked in the driveway with the windows down, sipping a lukewarm La Croix while my laptop put our WiFi to the test.
On good days, we walked the neighborhood and basked in the sunshine.
On bad days, I yelled. Or could barely get out of bed. Or both.
Most days, though, held both darkness and light. Grief and joy. Suffocation and fresh air. Nothing made sense; it was complicated and nuanced but also … simple. We woke up, we stayed home, we went to sleep. Every day, we did our best, not knowing when it would be over. Everything felt tangled. The loneliness would swallow you whole if you let yourself feel it too long.
One day, in the shower, it occurred to me that you kids were fine. Happy, even. You were home with your family, and for you, home wasn’t a horrible place to be stuck. I cried in the shower the day I realized that. The day I realized every memory carved in your minds, whatever they may be, translated to love. Security. Protection. No matter what I’ve ever said (yelled) about the damn legos. You felt safe here, even in this, especially in this, and the day I cried in the shower, I praised God for that.
I don't know what you'll remember from this time, what fragmented recollections will take root in your minds for the long haul. I’m sure in the years to come, I’ll tell and retell what it was like dozens of times.
Because some things, a mother never forgets.
Words and photo by Ashlee Gadd.