What is your earliest memory?  How old were you at the time?  What was your memory about and how, today, is it relative (might be a pun) to you as an adult?

Let’s take a look at my earliest memory that I vividly have locked in my mind.  Or so I think.  After all, one can have some distortions in old memories.

Here’s my story.

One day, when I was four years old, I inadvertently cut my arm, near my left bicep, on the side of my sister’s six year old play stove that apparently had very sharp edges.

Immediately, from my point of view, blood was gushing from my upper left arm and I was scared, or so I thought.  I don’t remember being all that scared.  Within a few seconds of the blood spouting out of my arm, my mother, no stranger to anxiety, came to my aid, or, perhaps, her aid really.  The fear and anguish in mother’s face was very scary to me.

Mother quickly whisked me into the bathroom and spoke to my father who was in the bathtub with lots of bubble bath on the surface of the water.

My father quickly told my mother to put a towel on the wound.  Then he said, “I’ll be out of the bathtub soon.”

From my point of view, I wanted my dad out of the water instantly.  I knew he was a surgeon and I wanted him to take care of me now, this instant!

As I’m waiting for my father to get to work on my bloody wound, it seemed like an eternity.  From my perspective, dad just wasn’t all that interested in coming to my injury.  I vividly remember that from my point of view, Dr. Dad just wasn’t in a hurry to take care of me.

After he finally got out of the bath tub and got dressed, he and mom and I were in the car headed for my dad’s medical office.  On the way to the office, my anxiety ridden mother looked scary as she looked off and on toward my face.

When we arrived to my father’s office, I was put on the medical table with my face toward the ceiling.  Mother was on my right side, holding me down on the table, her face and body full of high anxiety. She looked like an emotional wreck.  Father on the left side was putting four stiches in my left arm.  I vividly recall feeling safe as my dad was taking care of me. I also had some degree of loving toward him.

On the way home from dad’s office, my mother was less anxious and the drive home seemed nice, low key, without much, or maybe no anxiety in any of the three of us.

The next morning I had some bandages on my stitched wound and everything seemed okay regarding the drama of the night before.

Here’s the REST of the story.  Twenty years later, at age 24, I asked my dad, “Why didn’t you get out of the bathtub much faster?

His response was, “I didn’t want to scare you by getting out of the bathtub fast and dressing fast and getting you to be scared.”

“Wow, dad.  For the past twenty years I viewed you as being unconcerned about my wellbeing over the EVENT of twenty years ago.”   It blew me away that I had to hold back and not tell you this way sooner.

We both smiled and had some closure.

It’s been a pleasure giving you a slice of my life.

Should anyone want to tell me your earliest memory, please tell me in as much detail as you want.  Include, if you like, how you see this early memory being congruent or not in how you are now.

Bye for now,

Jonathan J. Brower, Ph.D.
818-707-4557