I don’t remember much of my childhood, to be honest. There are only a few specific memories that I have been able to hold close to my heart over the years. One of those earliest memories was when I was two years and ten months old, the night of July 16, 2006. The reason I remember this night so prevalently is that it was the night before my little sister was born. I don’t have a full collection of events from that night, more like a spattering of key images.
My parents gathered my brother, who was two years my senior, and me in the family room, where we kept the family PC and an old recliner my mother favoured. For whatever reason, I distinctly remember what I was wearing that night. My brother and I were in matching sets of Lilo and Stitch pyjamas, and I had on an old quilted robe that my grandma had given me.
I remember being really excited, though not fully understanding why at the time. We were so rumbustious that night, jumping around, singing and dancing, and, as my dad fondly referred to us, “whirling dervishes.”
Before we were swept off to bed, I remember my mom gathering my brother and me on either arm of her chair so that we framed her belly with my little sister inside. I don’t really remember what she said, though I imagine it was something along the lines of how things were going to change starting tomorrow.
After that, though I don’t remember it, my maternal grandmother arrived to stay with my brother and me, and the next thing I recall is being awoken by her the next morning. Evidently, my mom had gone into labour in the night, and my dad had taken her to the hospital.
I can recall being very confused and not really knowing what was going on, though I know I was not concerned. I remember my grandma helping my brother and me get ready to go, and I can distinctly recall sitting on my parent’s bed and watching my grandma take out her curlers from the ensuite.
The memory then flicks to being loaded into my grandparents’ car and my grandma driving my brother and me to the hospital. I don’t actually recall if my grandpa was there, though I do know he was at the hospital later.
The moments from leaving our house to arriving in my mom’s hospital room are a blur, though I do remember seeing my mom lying in that bed. I remember getting to see my little sister for the first time and thinking about how small and fragile she was. I can only assume that’s where my protectiveness of her came from, considering every day of her 18 years, I have hated to have her leave my sight.
Everything after that is a blur. I remember very few of her baby and toddler years, which I don’t know why. I find it fascinating for my own internal catalogue that I remember those first moments so distinctly, but then my next earliest memory of my little sister is probably when she was two or three years old.
It’s funny how memory works like that. We hold on to the big events or the most meaningful ones—the ones that hold overwhelming emotion, be they good or bad. Throughout my life, I’ve come to develop a fear of forgetting because, right before college, I started to realize that I was forgetting my childhood. That terrified me because those are times I will never get back, and if those memories are gone, so are the people as I knew them from that time.
However, through years of therapy and internal reflection, I’ve come to reconcile with my past and instead live for my future. Memories are a beautiful thing. It is wonderful to be able to recall specific moments throughout a lifetime, in varying amounts of detail, often for no other purpose than to think back to those feelings of strong emotion.
I find it incredibly interesting how strongly memory is tied to emotion. It was one of the reasons I actually started out as a psychology minor, because of how hard I held on to the past, and also because the way the human mind processes emotions and trauma has always fascinated me. How strange is it that humanity has evolved to have memories triggered by specific sounds, smells, phrases, or even the impression of another memory?
We get these notions of déjà vu, like we’ve lived a moment before, even though, rationally, that is impossible. It is so interesting how emotions affect the processing of memories, and vice versa, how memories affect the processing of emotions.
There’s a reason that people who have experienced some form of trauma in their lives have repeated flashbacks to that event, forcing them to relive that moment over and over. That is our brains trying to process the memories from that event, even if our conscious minds do not wish for that.
On the other hand, sometimes moments are too painful to store away, so our brains forget them altogether. There is a reason I can’t remember most of my middle and high school years because sometimes it’s better not to remember until the mind deems itself ready and capable of processing such things.
Regardless, I hold the memory of meeting my sister for the first time, incredibly close to my heart because as I said earlier, I see her as mine to protect. I grew up fast to keep her safe, not just from the wider world, but also from those closest to us. I'm grateful that I never lost that memory, but I am also thankful that I can continue to make more with her going forward.
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