I once read the more you remember about your childhood, the happier it must have been. I don’t remember the credentials, if any, of the person who authored this idea; but the notion stuck with me, and I ponder it from time to time.
I have an abundance of vivid, detailed memories of my upbringing. They are predominantly pleasant, so I tend to write with humor and happiness about the life I lived as a youngster.
But I sometimes wonder if I view my childhood through rose-colored glasses and thus mislead my readers, who could imagine I had perfect parents with only one or two endearing failings and siblings who squabbled, but always in a humorous, affectionate manner. My followers could believe I lived in a constant flow of love, exemplary behavior, good grades, abundant friends, and the pink glow of pleasantness.
Of course I didn’t live in a never-ending state of bliss. Some of my memories are embarrassing, humiliating, and hurtful. Most folks would probably agree the road of life is a crowded, bumpy, pot-holed path rather than a newly paved highway traveled by decorous drivers.
Dad’s temper could flare alarmingly at inanimate objects and recalcitrant animals. Mom — weary from babies, refereeing, cleaning, and cooking — sometimes issued sharp reprimands. The ridicule and insults of my siblings could wound me by falling too near the truth, and I would rush to retaliate as hurtfully as possible.
Our sibling life included yelling, crying, sneakiness, lying used defensively, defiance of parental rules, and resentment of punishments. Our friendships and school experiences contained bouts of bleakness; and money, which did not flow easily, could cause contention.
So I do remember turmoil and outbursts of chaos; but, if given the opportunity, I would choose to be raised again by the same parents and with the same siblings. My heart sings when I know I’m going to spend time with any of my brothers and sisters and floods with love when I remember my parents and deceased brother. If given a truth serum and asked to describe in one word the years I lived under my parents’ roof, I would respond, “Happy.”
I think the truth about anyone’s past is a liquid stream of luminous gray, neither pristine white nor deep black: a stream at the mercy of human memory, wending its way through the sometimes boisterous, sometimes placid, sometimes threatening river of our lives.
My memory soothes the intervals of disturbed water in my young life, and I’m glad. Though I don’t deny my realities, I prefer to remember my childhood as stretches of calm river etched with sunshine rather than occasional turbulences edged by a threatening sky.
I’ve made my choice: if I ever write bleakly, it will have to be fiction.
Aunt Beulah 