my earliest memory

I heard someone--some writer or another--talking about their 'earliest memory' on National Public Radio today.

I didn't really hear what they said about their earliest memory because I was searching my diminishing brain cells for mine.

And this is it: I was walking but not talking, I think. My earliest memory is of two men fighting.

My parents and I were in a yard somewhere in summer. My father was in a lawn chair and I was standing.with my mother when a man came into the yard.

My father jumped up and ran to him and they grabbed each other and fell on the ground, fighting.

Or so I thought.

My mother picked me up because I started crying and was very scared. But she was laughing at the men.

Turns out it was my uncle Adelbert Bradley who had been away for a long time and my father ran to hug him and they slipped on the lawn and fell down.

They weren't fighting at all--they were in an embrace of love that got out of hand!

But that moment seared into my brain. I look at pictures of me as a child and have no memory whatsoever of the moments. In those pictures I am a couple of years older than the day Uncle Del came home. But his homecoming is my earliest memory.

Maybe fear makes us remember. I hope not, but it may.

Given all the fear in our culture these days...and all the anger...I dread the memories we will have of this time.

Better to remember embraces than fights.

That's what I say.

And hope.