Sunday Scribblings ~ Earliest Memories

little boho, 1976

When I saw the Sunday Scribblings prompt for "Earliest Memories", the one that popped into my head was when I was a little over one years old. I had just arrived home from Stanford Memorial Hospital. A few month's prior to my arrival home, I had nearly died. For a long while I wasn't able to hold anything down and no one knew what was wrong with me. By the time our local doctors sent us to Stanford, I was malnutritioned with skinny legs and arms, a sunken in face and a huge belly like you see on television. Just when a doctor said to my terribly worried parents that there isn't much hope, a European doctor heard word of me, took a graph of my intestines and figured out what it was. Once I was diagnosed, all we had to do was change my diet. I couldn't digest gluten and apparently, gluten was in every baby product imaginable.

So, the memory that popped into my head was me swinging in a baby swing in the back yard of our house and my Va-Va & Vu-Vu (grandmother & grandfather in Portuguese) brought me a filet mignon to suck on for the iron that I was lacking. I remember the taste of the filet and how good it felt on my gums and their smiles. Their huge, huge smiles of relief that I survived. It didn't take long after a bunch of those filets until I became a chubster. My mother did her research, sent away for special foods and always made an additional dish for me as I grew older, without one complaint. She had the patience of a saint and saved my life. (I love you, marmie).

Although, I wonder if that memory in the backyard sucking on a juicy filet is so vivid because there is a picture of it in my parents album and that they tell this story over and over with tears welling in their eyes.

So, I closed my eyes and tried to remember a memory that was simply from my memory. I remembered my sister Darlene, 15 years old at the time and I was 5. She had made me a skirt and shirt for my first day of Kindergarten. They went fabulous with my Dorothy Hamill haircut and Precious Moments lunch box/bag you see across my shoulder that my marmie bought me! I recall walking into class with my best little boy friend and feeling quite proud. I think you can see my pride in the picture above quite clearly.

I am sure you are all digging the cool 70's wallpaper behind me.