I have a very strong memory of being a child falling asleep in the back seat of my parent’ s car.  My father would gently pick me up and I would be half asleep as he carried me into my bed.  I remember feeling safe, protected, loved.  This is a wonderful memory.  Unfortunately not every child out there has had the same experience in their childhood.

I was born in the usual manner.  I had a father, a mother, a brother, and a sister.  At that time that was all I had.  I was also naked and defenseless. The others provided for my meager needs. I might add that I also had a pair of lungs on me even then that could shatter plastic. My mother tells a story about when I first came home from the hospital.  I was laying on a bed somewhere, in our house, and my brother came into the room.  He had taken off as I was arriving because I was a ‘girl’!!!! Yech!  My mother maintained that he had a bit of an attitude about his new sister. He came in the room and pointed a finger aggressively at me.  Being a red-head, a woman in training and basically just as loaded with attitude as my big brother, I grabbed the finger and held on.  He has been my favorite big brother ever since.  And I have always been his favorite red-headed sister.  Our sister is a brunette.

When I think back on my childhood, certain incidents stand out.  It is also true that remembering through the luxury of time does not always make for the most accurate of recollections. However, there are those memories that are indelibly etched in the mind and no matter how hard you try, they just will not go away.  Such is the recollection of running away from home.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a red-head.  As is my brother , my sister escaped our plight by having hair the colour of dark mahogany. All of us are independent, opinionated (I mean that in the nicest possible way), and we all enjoy life.  Of course, that was not always the way.  I don’t remember all the arguments I had with my mother.  I probably forgot them a few minutes after I was punished.  But I do remember one incident when I tried to run away from home.  I was probably yelling and saying awful things and then I did what I thought would hurt my mother the most: I threaten to run away from home.  Now, one would have thought that the threat alone would have been enough to bring my mother to her knees, begging me to stay and that she would give me anything not to leave. Well, you don’t know my mother.  She calmly said “ok” and helped me pack!  I think the farthest I got was the end of the driveway.  It hadn’t worked out the way I had planned. I was going to join a circus (it was unimportant that there wasn’t one close) and my mother would spend the rest of her life regretting driving me away.  She would pine for my presence.  She would……well you get the picture.  Instead I hung my head and went back.  My mother gave me a hug and probably a glass of milk and a cookie.  It’s a mom thing.   Wonderful childhood memories.