March 29, 2007 09:27 AM
Sibling Memory
I recently read an article in More magazine, by author Kathyrn Harrison. In the article, titled "Speak, Memory," Harrison reveals that with no living parents or siblings, her own childhood memories are all she has. She also reports that even some experts assert that "memories are not received but created". If no one is around to verify or deny those facts, how can we know if what we remembered is accurate?
I started thinking about my own childhood, and the facts surrounding it that my brother and sister can confirm, deny, or dispute. We do this often, my siblings and I, and the practice has made for some laughs and even a few arguments. ("...no, it didn't happen that way! It happened like this...") The truth is that there are only two other people that know exactly what it was like to grow up in my childhood home as children of my two parents; only my brother and sister were there when the incidents that make up my childhood memories occurred.
My children (there are two) have each other, and I've never been more thankful for this than now. I worried that the fact that they are five years apart in age and different sexes might mean that they wouldn't have much in common. But then I see them whispering about a Mother's Day secret gift, or how to keep one of their latest science quiz grades a secret from me and dh. That's when I know they're in it together, just like my brother and I were. I recently recalled the day my mother uncovered some alcohol in my room when I was 17, and my brother (19, and legally able to drink at that time) took that blame and said it was his. His reaction was automatic: protect his little sister, and reduce the fighting that would surely ensure if he did not.
As the baby of the family, I often felt like an only child during my last few years at home. My brother was away at college and my sister, nearly a decade older than me, was married and starting a family. But as my mother battles Alzheimer's Disease, our ages, where we live, and what we bicker over disappears.
I found a picture the other day of my mother as a young girl, and quickly called my older sister to tell her about it. "Do you remember how pretty Mom was? And those wool suits she'd wear, and the blonde beehive hairdo she had?" And my sister laughed and said "Yes, I remember. The green suit was my favorite. I remember when she bought it...you were little but we went shopping one day..." She tells me the story, and it makes me feel like I'm not alone facing my mother's illness. Like when I visit Mom, and her eyes are so blank, it lets me know that there are two other people in this world that remembers her the way I do.
