Sara 1974

Memories can be as difficult to recover as your grandmother’s doilies packed in the bottom of a tattered cardboard box in your cousin’s attic. They may lie tucked in a dusty corner of your mind, becoming thin and musty with age.

But occasionally you’ll stumble across one of those elusive memories. It might be a photo that prompts a withdrawal from your memory bank. It could be a specific smell or sound. Maybe it’s something you read that precipitates a recollection.

Today I experienced the latter when I came across Abby Sher’s story, Selling My Mother’s Dresses. As I read the article, I remembered rummaging through piles of clothing at garage sales in pursuit of items with quality fabric I could cut up to sew dresses for my little girls.

I distinctly recollect the outfits I created from repurposed material, but those I sewed from purchased fabric are faded memories. My oldest daughter Sara is pictured in 1974 wearing a dress I made from a white dotted swiss kitchen window valence and a plus-size woman’s full skirt. The buttons on the straps came from an old housecoat of my grandmother’s.

The blue smoked dress Sara wore to her uncle’s college graduation was constructed from a polyester leisure suit, much like the one her father wore. I used a light blue denim slipcover to make a vest and skirt for Sara and a jumper for her younger sister, Sonja. The red gingham shirts that completed those outfits were cut from a tablecloth. Kitchen curtains were the basis for the matching pink and baby blue gingham sundresses I sewed for Sonja and Samantha, her little sister.

I always tried to pick certain colors for the two youngest girls — red or pink for Sonja and shades of blue for Samantha, who always ended up wearing both colors when her sister outgrew her clothes. I’ve now been told the girls hated this color designation.

As the girls grew, they began to resist wearing homemade clothes. By that time I was a single mother with little spare time for sewing. However, I did make prom dresses for two of the girls. Neither were made from a tablecloths or curtains.

My granddaughter was named after my cousin Robin, who also died from breast cancer when she was much too young. She lived long enough to know she had a namesake, but like the Robin in Yoffe’s story, she had no children of her own. We were 14 years apart in age; she lived in California, I in Minnesota, so we weren’t close in any sense. However, I knew her well enough to recognize her beauty in both body and spirit. I’m sure she would have been a wise and nurturing mother.

On the fifth anniversary of my cousin’s death, my daughter brought my granddaughter from Fort Worth, Texas, to Santa Cruz, California, to meet friends and family. They all assured us little Robin was doing the name proud with her effervescent personality and joie de vivre.

The article also reminded me of another beautiful woman whose life was cut short. And, there’s a name connection also.

When I first started dating the man I’ve been married to for over 25 years, I knew his first wife had been killed in a car accident, leaving behind three young children who were being raised by their grandparents. I was amazed when they revealed we had not only the same first name (Mary), but also the same middle name (Elaine), highly unusual coupled with my husband’s extremely rare last name.

My step-daughter has been posting photos of her mother on Facebook for Mother’s Day, and this tall woman with the long, dark hair looks like she enjoyed life to the fullest. I know she would be delighted with how her children turned out, would have cherished her grandchildren, and would be anticipating becoming a great-grandmother soon.

The length of our allotted time on this earth remains a mystery, so make the most of every moment. And, make sure you have shared at least a little of your life story with those you love so your memory will live on once you’re gone.

All eyes were on our father as our mother placed a bowl containing half a grapefruit in front of him. Dad reached over, scooped up a heaping spoonful from the sugar bowl in front of him, and with exaggerated motion, liberally sprinkled his grapefruit with the granules. Using the special spoon with tiny teeth at the point, he dug out a large section of the citrus, and while we all held our breath, brought the grapefruit to his mouth.

“Who put salt in the sugar bowl?” Dad roared, jumping up from the table, the spoon clattering to the floor. My brothers both shrieked with laughter, John pounding the table with his fists, and Mark rocking so hard the back of his booster chair banged against the window ledge behind him. I merely smiled and marveled at my father’s terrible memory. How could he forget we did exactly the same thing on April 1st the year before?

We repeated that April Fool’s Day ritual for many years, my father gamely playing the fool. But the year I was 15, my brothers were laughing at me instead of my father.

Our tiny community had an elementary school, but from seventh grade on, we had to catch a bus to junior and senior high school in a nearby town. Accepting the consequences of our actions was a big deal with my father, so I knew if I didn’t get on that bus, he would not allow my mother to drive me the seven miles. I was paranoid about missing the bus.

On the first day of April my sophomore year in high school, I woke to my mother calling up the stairs, “Mary, it’s almost 7:30!” I threw the covers aside and grabbed a skirt and sweater from my closet. (In 1961, we weren’t allowed to wear pants to school.) Pulling on white tennis shoes over bare feet, I hopped down the stairs and staggered into our only bathroom. A splash of water on my face, a comb through my short brown hair, a perfunctory brush of my teeth, and I was out the door, determined to be there when the bus arrived at 7:40.

I had crossed the railroad tracks and was approaching the bus stop at the elementary school by the time I realized it was Saturday. My brothers greeted me at the door when I returned home, shamefaced and truly feeling the fool. I still think they enjoyed that April Fool’s Day entirely too much.

Scientific studies show that highly emotional events are remembered much longer and more clearly than those that evoke little or no emotion. It’s why my generation remembers the Kennedy assassination and the first moon landing, while my parents remembered the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Today we remember events such as the space shuttle disaster, the Oklahoma City bombing, and, of course, 9/11.

When recalling my own vivid memories, I realize they are indeed emotional.

My first memory was one of terror. I was very young, because I was still sleeping in a crib. When I woke up, the blanket was completely covering me, and I couldn’t find my way out. I related this memory to my mother, who said our house was always chilly in the winter, so she fastened my blanket to the crib rails so I wouldn’t kick it off. It’s likely I somehow managed to get turned around under the blanket. To this day, I can’t stand anything over my face and head.

Another memory of childhood involves my vision. My parents found out I was extremely nearsighted when I was only three. I vividly remember riding home in the car wearing my new glasses and realizing trees had leaves and cows had faces. I also remember having breakfast with my husband after cataract surgery five years ago and being able to read a sign across the restaurant without my glasses.

Other vivid childhood memories are also emotional. I remember being accused of writing something derogatory about our teacher on the blackboard and being helpless to prove it wasn’t me. Perhaps that’s why I can’t tolerate movies about people who are charged with crimes they didn’t commit.

I clearly remember the day when my classmates started a forest fire. I attended a small country school with two grades in each room. I was in fifth grade when we went on a picnic in the woods near our school. Some of the sixth graders snuck off to smoke and didn’t put out their cigarettes carefully. Several acres were burned before the fire was finally extinguished. The experience didn’t prevent me from taking up the smoking habit later on, but I’ve always been extra sensitive to the smell of burning.

Of course there are many other memories that have stuck with me over the years. It will be interesting to see which ones are retained as I grow older. As my mother’s Alzheimer’s progressed, she lost all her memories of her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but she still remembered events from her childhood. Toward the end she became upset because her parents, who had passed away decades earlier, didn’t come to visit her.

Learn more about memories:

• How we remember and why we forget
• Brain regions influence our memories
• Neuroscientists identify how trauma triggers long-lasting memories in the brain
• New understanding of how we remember traumatic events
  
• Probing the mechanics behind how we remember
  
• The flavor of memories

What are your first memories? Are most of your early memories emotional?