What I’ve Learned From My Earliest Memory

 I feel at least once in a persons life they’ve experienced a broken heart. If they are a person like myself, sadly, it’s a sentiment that’s been trudged through on numerous occasions. I think I can date it back to being a child the first time my heart was fractured. Actually I believe it’s my earliest memory.

I do not remember how the entire day went, but I assume it went as many five year olds days go. Carelessly floating through moment to moment, living in the now. That’s a skill I envy about children, their inability to see far into the future allows them to fully enjoy life’s beauty, wowed by the smallest details in a rather large world. I don’t remember which season it was, I’m sure I’ve blocked all of that out. If it was summer I imagine myself playing frivolously outside with close friends hoping the sun never went down as if it were Alaska. If it was winter I imagine playing indoors with the before mentioned friends while my mother made hot coco and tea for us to drink, finding endless activities for us to do. In reality, I do not believe that’s truly how the days went, just what I would have hoped. 

My earliest memory comes abruptly. A scene of my younger self sitting on the bed playing video games alone. I do remember that was often how things were for me, lonely. Loud voices came through my open door as if people were standing right outside of it, but when I turned my head and looked, I could only see the hallway looking back at me. Terror struck me like lightning in that moment. I assume I’d heard yelling by then, but my instincts said this was something different. The yelling back and forth between the two people who were supposed to protect me from fear increased, and as the volume lifted, so did my level of discomfort. I ran to the door of my room and shut it, but not in the way I normally would. I did it in the way an unsatisfied preteen would in a desperate cry for attention after a punishment had been passed down. I risked chastising, hoping it would at least briefly end what I was hearing, but no one came. 

I turned the television up to a volume unreasonable for any five year old, but the voices still found their way in. I soon shut myself in the closet, playing a small toy piano that had a song programmed into it that honestly scared me. The name of that tune, unfortunately escapes me now, but as the song played that night, there was no fear of it. I don’t know how long I stayed in that closet. It seemed like an eternity to me, but I truly doubt it was for any more than twenty or thirty minutes. 

My memory of that night betrays me there, for I next found myself in the living room between the two people who brought me into this world. My two closest things to proof of God in this physical world at that age. As filled with in anxiety as I was in those moments, I wondered what I’d done to cause all of that. Sometimes I still wonder what I did, or could have done to make things better. I still have no answer. 

I stood a line child in the middle of that living room. Mom on one side of the room, Dad on the other. Then I was posed with a question. “Who do you want to live with?” Well, that’s a question much to complex for a child of that age to answer for many reasons, but in my mind I didn’t want to hurt either of them. I went there. My heart broke then. I remember my mom gathering a few things then leaving me to say goodbye to my Dad. 

“He’s coming with me!” I recall her saying in a rather hateful tone. I wondered if I’d ever see him again. My recollection of that night ends there, with that goodbye hug. 

Through the years I’ve gotten different versions of that night, and what “truly” happened, but I won’t betray myself. It’s all still to clear. Unfortunately it can’t be erased like you could an old browsing history. The scars are still visible. 

This is but one of the stories on a broken heart I could write, an entire continuous series could be written on the topic, but I’ll spare the time. If explored, that night contains a lesson. It was a lesson that took me a while to transmit though. As parents, we’re given the opportunity to be able to right the wrongs we felt were done to us as children. We have the duty to do that. Yes, none of us asked for the life we were given, but we all have a purpose and responsibility to make the world and our respective communities a better place for the next generation that will dwell there. Now let me be clear, no one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes as humans, there are always things that we wish we would have done differently. With that being said, I’ve always noticed the closer I stay to the path of what I see is right, the less grief, shame, guilt, worry, ect comes into my life and the lives of those I care about most. The sad tragedy about life is no matter all the work done, there is no escape of the inevitable moments that will break our hearts along the way. 

When faced with it, lean into it, for a great conquering story is on the other side and reminders of your triumph are left by the scars. Be painstaking in the battle, do not be consumed by it, and while it may seem there is no sunshine on the horizon, have some assurance that lesser men and women have fought the same battle and won. So can you. 

Life essentially is a collage of the moments we wish will never end, moments that feel like an eternity to get through, and moments that fall somewhere in between on that scale. Think brilliantly, tread cautiously, but fight valiantly, for on the other side of that heartbreaking experience is a vast variety of life’s beautiful images that will leave you in awe. 

-E.R. Delane