Memories.

I remember being nine or ten years old, on my hands and knees, crawling up the staircase to get to the kitchen, where my mom was cooking dinner.

I remember calling out for my mom, but the words lost their form and letters fell into a heap on the staircase.

I remember my mom sitting on the kitchen floor with me, breaking graham crackers into smaller bites and putting them in my mouth, dinner burning in pans on the stove.  I remember my mom’s eyes being very wide but she wasn’t crying.  I remember a glass of juice.  I remember it was hard to chew because I was crying but I wasn’t sure why, and then there’s a sharp edit in my memory, where I don’t have any recollection of what happened next.

As quickly as it came, the low blood sugar passed.  I don’t remember what caused it.  I don’t remember recovering.  I don’t remember what my face looked like, or how empty my eyes must have been, or what I sounded like as I crawled up the stairs, calling for my mom.  I don’t remember thinking about it for days afterwards.  I don’t remember feeling affected by it for more than those few minutes.

I think about my mother, cleaning up the cracker crumbs and placing the juice glass in the sink, salvaging what was left of the dinner she was cooking, trying to forget.

[For more posts about Memories on D-Blog Week, check out these links.]

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