Memory is Imagination

(Exercise taken from Room to Write by Bonnie Goldberg)

TODAY'S PROMPT: Begin with the phrase "I remember" and start writing. It doesn't matter whether you stick with one memory or list several. You can retrieve memories from as far back as childhood (or past lives) to as recently as yesterday. If you get stuck just keep repeating the phrase "I remember," in writing, until something else forms in your consciousness. Don't even be concerned with the authenticity of the memory. Just record whatever comes to you. Don't stop until you have filled two pages.
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"Memory is a net."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
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I remember the first time I met my father. It was Valentine's Day and I think I was eight years old. I remember being so excited to see him that it was all I could think about. I'd never really had questions about my father and my mother never volunteered any answers. But when I realized that I would get to see him, I wanted to more than anything. Suddenly having a father was a big deal, and not just a stepdad, but a father.

I don't remember what I was wearing which seems funny to me because the rest of the memory is so vivid. It was raining that night and my mother and I pulled up outside of a house not far from the school I attended. She told me we could go home if I wanted to but there was no way I could go home knowing my father was just on the other side of that door. I had one of those silly little cutout valentines for him, it had Michael Jordan on it.

We walked into the house and I met this whole other family I never knew existed. It was my father's brother, his wife and their two kids. Michael was only about five or six. He had big blue eyes and hair so blonde it was almost white. Ashley was seven. She had darker blonde hair and big brown eyes. Rhonda was my aunt. She was short and petite with long blonde hair. Michael was tall with dark hair and brown eyes. I remember looking at him and thinking he looked just like my father, except thinner and a few years younger.

And then there was my dad. He was tall and handsome. He had dark, thick hair and green eyes the same shade as mine. He had jeans on and a grayish-green t-shirt. I was so happy to see him that I could barely speak a word and I'm shy anyways. I didn't know what to say to him. Seeing him, being there with him, discovering this new part of family I never knew. I didn't want to know why he wasn't around for the last eight years. I didn't want to know why I'd never known him before.

For that moment it was enough that he was just there.

He gave me this cute little stuffed animal that was called Sad Sam Honey. It was a grey and white puppy dog with big teardrop shaped eyes and pink bows on the ears. I think it's funny that after all these years I still remember that. It was sixteen years ago. But I remember it because I cherished that stuffed animal like it really meant something. Like it made up for all the years he wasn't there and all the years he wouldn't be there in the future.

I kept that stuffed animal for years, until Christian was born. When Christian was born I realized something. I realized that my love for him was unconditional; that it was so deep I couldn't imagine myself ever leaving him. When I held him in my arms for the first time I knew that there was nothing in this world that would ever keep me from him. And I realized that I was a mother and I had to start making decisions in my life based on how it would effect him. My father was easy to let go of when I thought about it like that.

So all those years ago even as wonderful as the memory was, sitting on my father's lap, listening to him tell me stories about growing up in Phoenix and how we had this special bond because he always just knew things about me even when it was impossible for him to know, I'm finally over it. It didn't end with Christian's birth but it was the wakeup call I needed to get there