the first memory

Experts say that people do not begin to have memories until they have a large enough vocabulary to explain what they have experienced. I was an early talker and wrote when I was two years old. My favorite phrase was "I am intellectually capable of coping with the problem." So needless to say, I had a decent vocabulary at that age. Maybe that's why I remember it all - even though it seems hard to believe.


My very first memory is sitting with Mama on the front step. I am two. It is dark outside. I should be in bed and I know it, but for some reason we are content like this - me next to her, my tiny hand on her leg looking up at the stars.

"Do you know what is up there?" she asks.

I don't really, but I know what she is going to say, even know why she is going to say it. I bite anyway. "What?"

"That is where heaven is."

She is wrong. I know where heaven is, and I know she will be back there soon. She does not know it though, and I am not about to tell her.

I lean my head on her arm and I try to remember. There are some pictures in my head, but I cannot really remember what it is like anymore. I remember her - remember picking her, knowing her, but I cannot remember the place. So I ask. "What does it look like?"

She pulls me onto her lap and says, "Nobody knows, but I think it is beautiful."

I know that much is true. But still, it is not really an answer. "What do you do there?"

"I think we will dance," she says.

And she is dancing there now. But I wonder who she is dancing with - it isn't me.