Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
~ The Wonder Years
Someone once asked me what was my first “memory” …and that was easy. I am not sure how old I was, but I remember that I was still wearing those white baby shoes. My mother was putting them on as I sat perched on the old bathanet and was reciting a version of a poem that she adapted for me personally. In order to appreciate the story, I must lay down some background.
I grew up in south Florida where it rarely gets cold enough to don a sweater in the winter. But somewhere,perhaps in a book or maybe the Sears & Roebuck catalog, I had seen an illustration of a little girl who wore a beautiful red double breasted wool coat with brass buttons. She also wore a matching red wool bonnet. The little girl looked so sophisticated and enchanting that I dreamed of having such a coat and bonnet.
So my earliest memory is my
mother lacing up my white “baby” shoes reciting her little poem
“I love little Libby
Her coat is so warm
And if I don’t hurt her
She’ll do me no harm.”
Of course the phrase in the original
poem was "I love little “kitty…her coat is so warm."
Now, in my small mind, all I
could think of when mother recited the poem was….”I don’t have any coat” and I
didn't know why my mother kept insisting that my coat was warm! So when she recited the rhyme, I responded passionately,
“But I don’t have any coat!”
Well, that made my mother laugh,
but it was very frustrating for me. Why
did my mother keep repeating this to me when she KNEW I did not own a coat of
any kind?
I don’t know when…but later…perhaps
for Christmas, I was given a beautiful coat with a matching
bonnet. I don’t remember wearing it
much, but my mother told me that after I received it, I no longer responded
with “but I don’t have any coat!” when she would recite her “I love little
Libby” poem. I think it made her a little sad.
