Childhood lost
Dredging Up the Forgotten
A memoir of the end of my childhood
Father was with Mother in the delivery room at the birth of their last child in January of 1970. My sister Deborah was born very sickly. She was in and out of the hospital in the first few months of her life. And, Mother had what folks called, “the baby blues” when Father had to return to duty.
Right after Deborah was born, Father shipped out for an extended posting. He was an airplane mechanic, specializing in ejector seat assemblies, and serving in the U.S. Navy. He had to rejoin his ship overseas.
Father spent an amount of time in port, on base there, waiting for his ship to put in. I don’t know how long he waited, but I don’t think it was all that long. Which makes what follows all the worse for me.
Much of my memory of that time is rather nebulous. After all, I was only six and a half when Deborah was born. Much of the finer details I relate in this memoir are from the Mother’s or other adults’ retelling of that time.
Thinking back though, the years fall away as I recall the stories and my own memories of the time. It always dredges up a lot that I’m sure I didn’t fully grasp at the time or had forgotten over the years. Growing up, I suppose it’s not something to which I wanted to give much thought.
