Adam

Wouldn't it be awful to have a "dead friend" meme? But I have been inspired again by Laura, and I can't help it. Now I want to write about all my deaths. Maybe it will quiet some of the winds of sorrow and grief that sometimes blow across my chest.

Adam, what first memories do I have that aren't the pictures? The first picture, does it count? Is the picture of our moms face down at the beach. Only their beautiful young bodies were showing, while their large pregnant bellies were hidden in turtle holes in the sand. The story goes that my mom came to visit Sharon after having me, and Adam, who should have been born first, decided that he wanted to come out into the world too. Our moms met in a pre-natal class and he was born exactly two weeks after me. We both came into the world in beautiful mountain country, and then my mom moved, and a few cute baby pictures could have been the end of the story, but they aren't.

Adam, carried along as babies are by fate (ie their parents), moved several states away from where he was born to the state I was being raised in. There we were, two toddlers separated at birth, together again. Again, the pictures. His wide smiling face and my thin concerned face. We sit at the beach together, two fat lumps of bundled babies. Our moms take turns sitting with us on Sharon's front porch. We eat popsicles. We clumsily lean our faces together in a baby kiss in front of one of our birthday cakes. We take baths together. (This is what our mothers gleefully tell us when we are older.)

The first real memory? I remember being in the kitchen with him in their house when we are about 6. I remember assuming that we would one day marry when he became taller than me. He was so cute and all the girls had crushes on him, as his mother proudly told me and he smilingly and with a shrug admitted. I was amazed by his Star Wars collection of toys. He was an only child and was given heaps of toys. Although some of my memories are hazy, I vividly remember his star wars action figures and most of all his Star Wars ships. Those were so cool. The rule was, he could have as many toys as he wanted as long as he didn't break them and took very good care of them. He told me this seriously and I was awed by the concept and by his parent's seriousness about his toys.

My favorite pictures of Adam and I are of us dancing at my mom's second wedding. We are two years old. His face has his usual baby expression, a happy-go-lucky dimple faced, wide cheeked good natured smile. He is wearing a green checkered jacket. I am wearing a long red velvet dress with a white lace pinafore over it. We are holding hands and the bottom of my dress is swirling out around me. My face is turned up and the expression on my face is one of pure joyful delight. Grown-up's legs mix with darkness and lights in the blur behind us.