RAISED BY WOLVES

It was a simple and reasonable request. My sister sent messages to both me and my brother asking for baby pictures with Mom. I had already pulled a number of archived photos for Janell to add to her slide show. Most of those photos were pictures of Mom that I had taken while on our weekend trips or from our Ireland trip. That folder also holds the one baby picture I have with my mother. I went through all of my boxes of old photos and found loads of pictures of me as a baby. There’s not a single photo of me as a baby with a parent. There might be a hand holding me steady in a photo. There’s one of me getting bathed in a kitchen sink where my mom is on the periphery of the photo, making sure my round baby body doesn’t fall over. The only picture I have where my mother is actually holding me is the one taken of my sister and I on my first Easter. We’re all wearing dresses made from the same material.

I guess Randy had the same issue. Tons of baby photos. No parents. Parents didn’t show up in my photos until I was walking or until I was the one taking the photos. Mom used to say that she was never in the family pictures because she was always taking them. I know this to be untrue. I also know when it was Mom taking the picture because every photo she took was blurry. She had a knack for creating blurry photos even while using an autofocus. Her finger is also in a number of them. I’ve heard the tales of how the third child is often the one with the least photos. Usually, by the time the third one rolls into town, the parents are over the whole documentary phase of parenthood. By this time, they’re juggling work and the raising of the first two children, leaving the newest arrival to just follow along. I would buy this as an excuse for the photos if my parents hadn’t produced children spaced so far apart. I mean, Randy wasn’t even around that much when I was born. He was a teenager with a license and a car. He played in a rock band, wore bell bottoms and had a mustache.

The community joke has always been the my parents had three only children.

My dad used to always introduce me to people as ‘his baby’ and then go on to tell them how I was so small at birth, I fit in the palm of his hand. He would finish his story with how he was terrified to hold me because he was afraid of breaking me. I get it. I was a teeny tiny baby, but you have to be at least five lbs to leave the hospital and I did eventually leave the hospital. I did become a baby with weight that no longer fit in the palms of people’s hands. We’ve never really been the touchy feely kind of family, though I do have memories of cuddling in Dad’s lap. He seemed to be the only one to have the patience for brushing my long tangly mess of hair. Often, I would lay in Mom’s bed and we’d watch old movies, but we were always side by side, not really cuddling.

But they held us as babies right?

For all I know, I was the kind of baby that hated to be held. Just set me in the bouncy seat and leave me be. Maybe the only time I wasn’t crying was when I was being left alone in whatever baby carrier they used in the late seventies. This is why I am so resilient and strong. I grew up encaged in 70s baby play pins and swings, which were all just shy of a death trap. I learned to walk in a den made out of bricks. Brick floor. Brick steps. Brick fireplace hearth with sharp right angles at perfect toddler eyebrow height. I survived that without knocking out any baby teeth. I came across a photo of me at around age three, I was curled up in a blanket, sound asleep, laying on that brick floor. I can remember many nights where I fell asleep on a blanket in front of the fire place. Like, I laid on that brick floor like it was padded carpet. The thought of that now, at this age and in this body, makes me groan with imaginary aches.

I’ve been questioning my relationship with my mother since 2005. Sorting through boxes of old photos has just created more questions. My mom has always been really good at evading questions she didn’t want to answer. I’m sure my questions would all fall under that category.