First Memory

Wayne Broussard

Ive never shared this with anyone.

Imagine being dropped into a black hole of despair, sinking down, down, downward, and knowing no one cares. Now imagine your three years old. This is my earliest childhood memory.

I grew up in a 700 square ft. one bedroom, one bath house up on pillars that I lived in with my parents and my older brother. A little white house with the washer on the back porch because the house was so small there was no room for it inside. There was no dryer but momma had a clothes line, two T shaped metal poles with four wires strung across them, to hang the wet laundry on to dry. The yard was small, fifty by eighty feet, with a chain link fence six feet high encircling the entire area which gave it a prison like effect.

I remember waking up from a nap in the middle of the afternoon and grabbing my squeaky little spotted dog toy Poky that I always had by my side, and sliding off the sofa in the tiny front room to go look for momma. Momma? Not here. The front room led to the kitchen. Momma? Not there. Next was the bathroom off to the right of the kitchen. Momma? Not there. My heart started to pound. I remember hearing the blood pumping pass my ear faster and faster and becoming more and more scared because I didnt know what that sound was as I crossed the bathroom straight into the bedroom. I hollered MOMMA!! NO ONE WAS THERE EITHER!!!

I remember running back to the front room and crashing down on the floor with great tears falling and shouting MOMMA!!!, another deep breath inhaling most of the air in the front room and hollering out long and loud, MOMMA!!!. Over and over again it seemed like forever. MOMMA!!! MOMMA!!!

Crying and sobbing uncontrollably, screaming MOMMAAA!!! until there where no more tears and no longer any voice to call out with. A hoarse, dry whisper of momma!!! was all that was left as the time drug on. The loneliness and despair amplified by the fact I didnt even know what I was feeling was called. How can you fully describe such a traumatic experience as this when you are three years old and havent the vocabulary to express yourself? Even now, the words on this paper do not do justice to the feeling of total abandonment and shear loneliness I felt as a small child at that moment, and still feel today as I write this. No words can.

There I sat. In the middle of the front room floor, just me hugging closely the only comfort I had in this world of abandonment, Poky, alone in what to me was a gigantic house, unable to reach the door knobs or the phone or contact anyone. Even if I were capable of doing something, not knowing what to do. Shoulders rising and falling, convulsing with each heart felt sob.

Then the front door opened and there was MOMMA!!! I rush to her with my hands held up high for her to take me into her arms and comfort me. I needed to know she was real and I was safe once again. I needed for the despair and loneliness to go away and never come back. I remember Momma lifting me up and saying Whats the matter? I was just next door at Mrs. Digatears house to get some thread with your brother. We werent gone long. To me it was forever! All the while I laid my head on her shoulder, sobbing deeply as she patted me on the back, and tried to re-enter the world I thought Id lost forever. The world of complete security from all the monsters in a three year olds life, whether imagined or real, was lost to me forever. I realized it would never be the same.

What I learned from this? Total innocence and security were lost forever at that moment and could never be attained to the same measure as before.

As I grew older in life and faced other times of insecurity and abandonment, I swore Id never let anything like that happen to my children. I would always try to give them the security they needed knowing Daddy would always be there. Whatever they needed, whenever they needed, I would be there for them.

What else I learned?

I now also understand about time and how its perceived by the different generations. As a child we have few days to compare any amount of time to, therefore a minute seems like an hour and an hour like a day. But as we mature to old age, we have multiple decades to compare time to, so it seems to pass faster. As children, the two weeks prior to Christmas takes forever. As adults it seems like Christmas was just last month and its already here again? Where did the year go? When talking to children always remember, to them, a week is forever.