Four-Eight-Four [dot org]

For whatever reason, I don’t have many memories of my life prior to the second grade or so … or at least any that I can definitely pin to that period of my life. Maybe two from my second grade year, one from kindergarten, and that’s about it.

Of those, only one is really, really clear. For whatever reason, I remember the events leading up to the death of my (Great-) Uncle Gene, who lived next door to me growing up. I clearly remember watching him climb into the back of the ambulance at his house that morning … and watching the ambulance pull away, and head toward Youngsville. I remember running to my bedroom at the other end of the house and watch it disappear around the curve. I remember that one of my parents told me that he wasn’t really sick, because they didn’t have the emergency lights on.

I remember the night my parents told me he died too. It was a cold night, and I was sitting by the wood stove, reading a book. It had something to do with a garden, and going back in time, and ice skating.

The memories, though not complete, are so vivid that it almost could have been yesterday.

Tonight, I “recovered” another memory.

My daughter woke up, and I went in to try to get her back to sleep. I laid down the bed and held her, but she was still restless. I started singing a nonsense song to her to calm her, and suddenly … I was laying down, with my father playing the guitar, and singing a song … something about sailing somewhere. Once again, the memory is so vivid. I can almost put my finger on the tune he was playing.

Makes me wonder if I’ll recover more memories as my daughter grows up. I hope so.