You ever think back to your first memories and replay them in your head? What are some of your first memories……? Where are you? What season is it…..? Is it peaceful? For me there are three memories that come to mind when I think of first memories.
One is me playing with hot wheels on the linoleum floor of my grandmothers two level apartment in the projects with my older cousin James. I can still see how the light would come in to all the bedrooms upstairs. There wasn’t a lot of furniture so that meant lots of room to play. The floor was perfect for racing hot wheels! Gliding them through our self-made obstacle course of shoes, green army men and random toys. We would also daredevil many experimental rides down the stairs when we grew tired of trying to race the cars unsuccessfully off the top step only to watch the tumble down and land somewhere near the middle stair. I still love little metal cars and tracks to this day. I often get on the floor with my son and play for hours with his.
Another memory is the last very time I fell asleep on my father’s chest before he was gone for 10 years. I used to bury my face my dads shirts because he smelled so good. If I had to name the smell it would be “warm home comfort”. I loved the way my father smelled, so I would find every opportunity to just lay on his chest. At four and five years old he would still pat and rubbed me to sleep on his chest. He would let me lay there and would pat and rub me until I drifted. My father was so loving and definitely the good cop. He would buy me things every time we went places and would take me nearly everywhere he went. He was my favorite person then and to be honest I don’t remember my mother or sister much before he left. It was as if he was my main character and they were extras in the background. I don’t remember the exact day he left but I remember the void and learning what “miss” “disappointment” and “sadness” feels like. I didn’t know it then because I was…. as they tell children, “too young to understand”, this event was one that set my life on a path of perseverance.
My last first memory is playing cards with my first sexual abuser. I was in our living room while my mother was gardening around the side rear of the house outside. The front door was open where I could see part of my mother’s garden through glass screen door across the room from me. I had a deck of cards, practicing my shuffle. My mom and sister had played bid wiz the night before and because I was only 5, I was only allowed to watch and write the bid numbers on the paper as they played. I wanted to so much I decided I would pretend and practice so I could better at it. It was summer. My mom had dressed me in my favorite jean skirt, actually it was both my mom and I’s favorite . She loved dressing me in skirts and shorts because everyone said I had the prettiest thick bow legs but my very favorite thing to wear was my jean skirt with my ruffle socks and tennis shoes. People said I was cute a lot in these things so they became favorites.
A man I didn’t know tapped lightly on the door and came in. He was tall and thin. He smiled at me and said he was my mother’s friends cousin, Randall. He asked me to let her know he was there. I said she went to the backyard and would be right back. He sat to wait for her.
He was very nice, asked me about my age, school and if I knew how to play cards. I answered his questions with enthusiasm because I knew all the answers. “I am 5 years old, I’m in kindergarten and I know how to play all the cards” I said with a big smile. My mom came in soon after that and Randall left. Later that night my mom had a get together with family and friends. My friend Bria, from school came over and was staying the night. The music was playing loud from the den towards the middle of the house. The grownups were in the living room at the front of the house and all the kids were in my bedroom in the back of the house playing.
I remember leaving my room to go to the restroom and saw Randall in the hall. He asked me if I remembered him and told me to give him a hug. I did and Bria came out my room to find me. He picked me up, took her hand and took us in the den where the lights were off but you could still see our faces from the lights of the stereo that was playing. He sat me on one knee a ran his large slender rough fingers up my leg slow under my jean skirt and rubbed my vagina. I looked at Bria frozen, standing there in fear. He reach out his hand to her for her to come to him and she ran out, the distraction of her running gave me the opportunity to run too. We both ran in my room, closed the door and told my older cousin a man was following us.
The man soon entered the room but my cousin, Warren, stood between us and him like a protector. My mom soon showed and asked the man irritably what he was doing in there while escorting him back to the front of the house. I knew what happened was wrong but I still chose not to tell my mother. This decision not to tell is the first time I thought something bad would happen if I told. In my mind I was saving my mother from something that might upset her. Bria on the other hand told her mother which forced me to say what happened to my mother. The next day after telling her everything, my mom invited the man over. While they were on the porch I listened at the window right off the porch in the living room.
I could hear her, threaten to never report the man to the police. She walked up on him really close and said in a deep low tone….she would kill him and never be a suspect if he ever came anywhere near me, her or our house again. I, in later years, realized that him avoiding our house and me was probably a small challenge for the man because he lived down the street with his daughter who was 1 year older than me but I never saw him again.
I probably would have suffered worst trauma from this event if it were not for Bria and Warren.
I still love little metal cars and tracks to this day. I often get on the floor with my son and play for hours with his. I also have never and I do mean never had a day that I haven’t replayed sexual abuse events I’ve experienced in my head. Over the years I’ve gotten use to the memories playing in the back ground like when the a/c kicks on in your house. Theres a click and I slow low huummm…..You don’t hear it every time it comes on…..but it does and the temperature of the house is kept.
Loving the imperfect cracks that make the path so perfectly self. 