by Lynne Mcgee

Created on: July 03, 2008   Last Updated: July 09, 2008

I was Seventeen when I found out through a chance conversation with my Mum that my earliest memory was of an event that happened when I was just three days old. Over a cup of coffee we were reminiscing about my childhood when I casually mentioned a time that my Grandmother had held me and I proceeded to give her the details that I remembered. My mother sat stunned and kept saying to me "You can't remember that. You simply can't remember that!" I not only could but I remembered it very clearly and my Mum was able to verify both my age and the event. I too was amazed to know that I was such a tiny baby and in my mind I relived the event over and over for some days to come.

I remembered being held by a lady and a feeling of belonging right there. Of feeling safe. Then I was handed to another lady. The first lady was my Mum and the second was my Grandmother, but of course being only three days old I didn't know this. I felt momentarily insecure and the feeling brought me fully awake. I remember the 'waking' so I assumed that I had been a bit dozy up to this point. My Grandmother was as thrilled as any other Grandma to be holding her newest grandchild and as she looked down into my eyes she smiled gently. I felt my heart go out to meet hers and a warmth, lulling and comforting filled my whole body. It was as if she had spoken out loud her love for me. I felt safe but it was more than safe, I felt love but it was more than love. I felt something for which there are no words. I do know, and I remember the feeling clearly, that this is the moment in which my Grandmother and I bonded for life.

My Grandmother spoke, but of course to me the words were just sounds and I did not react. Her eyes were still telling me she loved me. Suddenly my Mother was taking me from her arms, the air seemed to become cool around me, the tension was palpable although I had no words for it. Mum held me quite firmly and a little roughly to her chest. Words were spoken which of course I did not understand but somehow, some instinct, made me feel as though it were to do with me and I felt the 'insecure' feeling again. In fact I felt as if I had done something wrong, or at least that is how the seventeen year old me would describe it. There was a jumble of sounds and my Mum called out. A lady whom I now know was a nurse came and gently took me from my Mum I once again felt fear and again I heard the jumble of sounds and at the same time I felt my first feelings of 'rejection'. It is an extraordinary

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