What is your earliest memory?

One of my friends asked me the other day, what my earliest memory was. I thought of a few, some of which I don't know the exact order of.

I have a few memories of my moms father, so I would have to have been pretty young, since I was three when he passed away. One of them is sitting on his lap in his recliner while he watched baseball. Funny, how at two or three, you wouldn't know what baseball was, but thinking back to the memory, your brain realizes what you were watching. I also remember a house that my grandparents lived in. It had a tree in the yard with a fort of sorts in it. I remember being very upset that I could not climb up into that fort because apparantly it had poison oak, or something, around the base, or in the tree. When I mentioned that to mom, she was pretty impressed that I remembered that one. I can't remember if it was before or after my grandfathers death. I also remember a trailer, or a fifth wheel, or something that my granparents had. I can't remember if we were camping, or if we were just in it for some reason, but I vaguely recall that.

Unfortunately, I also remember the day my grandpa died. I was staying with them at the time, and I remember having breakfast with grandpa before he left for the day. I'm not sure if he was retired at the time, or if he was leaving for work, but I clearly recall giving him a hug and a kiss. The rest of the day is a memory of confusion. I don't remember being at the hospital and having the nurses watch me like mom said happened. I just remember the day being very poignant, and I get a sense of sadness. Odd, how your brain works.

I have memories, later on, of staying with my grandma after my grandpa died. She lived in a trailer park in Woodburn, and every once in awhile, I wander over there to see if I can remember after all of these years which house was hers. It all looks so run down now, that it is hard, but I'm pretty sure I found the right one. Staying with grandma was always an interesting adventure, as I am sure all of my cousins could agree with. She was a difficult woman to truly appreciate. Going to her house always involved being quiet, eating odd health foods. Tofu, granola, trail mix, etc. (which is funny, because from the time we were little to the day she died, she always had a candy dish, much like my mother does now. Fascinating.) She would take you shopping for new clothes if the ones you were wearing were not what she deemed appropriate. I got caught once, when I was about five, trying to steal a sticker from a store we were in. Oh my, to this day, I remember her lecturing me for hours. Then she wouldn't even let me fully enjoy my episode of Little House on the Prairie, because it was the one where Albert was stealing the morphine, or something, from Dr. Baker, and then he gets caught, and they make him stop, and he goes through the massive withdrawls. All she kept saying was "See what happens when you steal? Do you see what you become?" which, to this day, looking back, makes me laugh, and no, I never stole anything ever again. She had a neighbor named Fay, that lived next door, and if you went over to her house, she gave you ice cream cones. Then there was Aunt Arvie, who lived around the corner, and gave us all $2.00 bills at Christmas time (whish I had hung on to those) and if you went to her house, you got mini candy bars that she kept in the fridge, and water out of mason jars, that she boiled and kept in her refrigerator because Woodburns water was bad. Arvie wore mens flannel shirts with her polyester pants, and had a three wheeled bicycle that she would let me ride occasionally. She loved sports. Good times, good times.

I've been thinking a lot about grandma lately. Not sure if it is nostalgia, or because mom is becoming more like her every day. When I look of pictures of grandma when she was young, it is like looking at a picture of my mom. When people come over to my house, and see the photos in the hall, and they've met my mom, they say, "Who is that with your mom?" and I have to tell them that is my grandma and grandpa. So, I knew mom was going to continue to look like her as she got older. Mom still colors her hair, but as she gets older, the grey gets harder to cover, and the white hairs are straight, not curly. If she let it all go white............wow..........
Every now and again, her voice changes, or she says just the right thing, and I say to her "okie dokie Glennadean" She hates that. She has a lot of grandmas qualaties, but she is lacking in many, many of grandmas not so desired traits. Which is good. As I get older, I'm realizing grandma was lacking what I would consider a really good self esteem. Plus, she was a lonely woman, who just wanted some really good friends. However, she lacked the social ability, to make friends, and keep them without being judgemental and pissing them off. Hence, her down fall. Calling every day to find out why no one would call her. She was so insecure with her self, that she needed constant reassurance that we all loved her. Plus, she never found activities that kept her busy and happy, so all she did was dwell on what every one else was doing. Which would explain why she jumped into marriage number three without really getting to know the guy. I think if she had made friends with people in the retirement apartment where she was living, she would have been more active, and possibly lived longer. I saw a change in her in the end, like she was finally realizing everyone around her had lives, and she was letting go of some of her bitterness. She would talk openly about all of her grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and I could really tell that she truly loved all of us, and she was really proud, really, really proud of who all of us had become. I think she put on a front (yet again, insecurity) and everyone thought she was unhappy with us, because she would open mouth and insert foot, when really, she was just happy with how we all turned out, but didn't know how to express it. She just wanted to be taken care of, something my grandfather apparantly did very well. I wish she had gotten to meet Koben. She passed away just a few weeks before he was born. I'm very sorry I did not get to know my grandfather longer, and very sorry I did not get to know my other one at all (and that my dad lost his father at 15) but I am very happy that I got to know each grandmother, even though they were a little kooky. Every family needs a little kooky. =)