Assisted Recollection

I called my son's mother this morning to ask if she could reinstall some bits of my erased memory about his birth and babyhood. I'm so glad I did, for she knew the time and the place, remembered everything. 

For example, while she was in labor in the delivery room, another woman was undergoing a complicated birthing of triplets, and that woman died in childbirth. I was coming up in the elevator after getting some snacks, she reminded me, heard some doctors talking about the death of this woman in the delivery suite, and was in a panic because I thought they were talking about my wife. Lordy, this event had totally disappeared from my brain! 

For example, my son had a cut on his forehead when he was born and he had a birthmark that looked like the starship Enterprise. 

For example, when I was tickling him in his cradle, he peed on my head. 

For example, I had become ill just after his birth and could not sit with her in the hospital and she was very angry that I had chosen such an inconvenient time to be ill. 

So many things. My God, we were so young. I was still in college! We didn't know anything about children or babies at the time except that we both found them vaguely annoying. 

We had wanted a daughter, she reminded me, and I had already chosen/invented a name--Roanne--and had even written a poem about my daughter to be. She still misses Roanne, she said. Lol. But that's okay, so do I. She would have been such a sweet, blonde-haired girl. 

They visited the grave yesterday, she and her husband, and laid flowers and chatted with my resting son. They visit the grave once a month, and she was happy to report that he has some new neighbors nearby, though by this I was not surprised, for cemeteries are forever welcoming new tenants.