It wasn’t until she was married and changing diapers on her firstborn child one morning that she recognized the source of her earliest memory: Light all around, so bright that it was almost painful, and the acrid smell from which there was no escape.
It was the ammonia! That’s what I’m remembering. This memory had haunted her all her life, but she knew people were not supposed to retain their early memories, especially those from babyhood.
Until now, she had used a diaper service that weekly picked up the cloth diapers, washed them, and returned them. This smell is horrible! Maybe it’s time to try the new disposable diapers that have just come on the market. She wondered why these cloth diapers had suddenly developed such an ammonia smell while the earlier deliveries had not. Were they not washed properly? Had they not been sterilized? Never again, she thought. I’m so sorry, my precious little boy.
So, what was the bright light that she remembered? It must have been the sunshine streaming into the first-floor bedroom and reflecting upon her from the ceiling. She hadn’t known she was once in a crib on the first floor of the two-family farmhouse. She remembered that her aunt and uncle had slept there. Her parents, her cousin, herself, and the hired help had all slept on the second floor, and none of the windows up there let in so much light. Her parents must have slept in the first-floor bedroom right after she was born.
That was it. That was all. Light and smell. Nothing else. How could this one memory have stuck with her for so many years?
The other early memory was not so benign. It changed her life then and for many years after.