My mother used to take the bus to get places since she didn't have a car. It was there she said I contracted tuberculosis from someone on the bus. The whole family had to be quarantined to make sure no one else had the disease, and it turned out I was the only one. Now, none of this I recalled as a ripe toddler of two at the time, but I do remember other things of that ordeal. I do recall having to go get checked out and getting x-rays to see if I had it. Once they knew, it elevated to shots, x-rays, pills, and a hospital stay. Now, most kids that I know at this age were terrified of needles, doctors, hospitals, and of giant twisted metal that seemed like some cyborg coming to get you so it can put invisible rays in your body. When they would take my chest x-ray I remember my tiny chest on the coldness of the machine, standing there in my undies, the nurse and technician applauding my bravery for being so cooperative and still encouraging me to look at the stuffed toy monkey on top of it and telling me not to move. They would say "Take a deep breath, now hold it.", then telling me to release after the whirring sounds of the machine did its job. Afterward, I would put the little gown they gave me back on and go back to my room for more treatment. When it came time to take my shots they tried to bribe me with candy hoping I wouldn't cry, but I was never afraid of needles or shots and never cried getting one. From their surprise, they would award me two lollipops instead of one. Through it all, I had a calmness that surprised everyone there for being such a young age. Eventually, I was sent to the hospital for treatment and stayed for two weeks - it was probably longer but it felt like two. My room was on the sixth floor and the bed next to the window like they were joined at the hip. At night I could literally look out of the window all the way down to the ground and imagined seeing a large mysterious face in the dark night, scaring myself into covering my head with the bedsheets and wishing to go to sleep as quick as possible so that my little mind would stop torturing me. My favorite memory though was having breakfast with a very kind nurse as she would watch cartoons in my room every morning with me. I don't recall her name but remembered her blonde hair and a pretty smile.
When it was time to leave, my mother gathers what things I had and a nice going away gift a metal Tonka toy truck - I said my goodbyes and surprisingly was never traumatized by this and actually had pleasant memories of it all. For the next two years I would regularly go back for x-rays to make sure it wasn't active anymore and taking horse pill-sized medicine that I had no trouble of swallowing whole, nor did I fuss about taking them either.
Other memories - not mine but my mother's memories of me and how I was as a small child shows that we develop our personality at a very young age - infused by our DNA of what we are going to be - our likes and dislikes that mold us into our future selves. She told me when I couldn't yet talk, I would crawl to the TV and then stand up holding on to it whenever there was music on the television and try to mouth as if I was singing. She said I wasn't even a year old yet and every time I did that she said my father thought something was wrong with me. I grew up loving music and singing and didn't have a shy bone in my body when the music came on. Also when I was two years of age, she said I would sleepwalk into the kitchen, take out a bowl and place it on the table along with dry and wet ingredients and mix everything up together. Now according to her, she would wake up in the morning to see I left all the evidence on the table and all over myself and the bed when she came to check on us in the morning. There I was sound asleep covered in flour, sugar, milk, and whatever else I mixed. Now it didn't portend that I would become a chef, but I do love to cook.
Well, that's the earliest memory that I ever recall as a child, and looking back it was the simplistic everyday happenings that stay in my memories and the ones that I cherish the most. Time spent with my family is what brought me the most joy. Some of them were disturbing, upsetting, frightening, while others were hilarious, sorrowful, reflective, and some were delightful leaving me content and peaceful. Next time I'll share some of those memories and exactly how my mother and father met.
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