Day 1

[bironic]

What's this?

And thank you to elynittria for the extra icons, so there can be a new one for each day. ♥


1. Elementary School

What I remember of falling through the door is this:

I was eight. It was summer. My mom, my sister and I were playing in the backyard, and at least two of us must have gone in the house for something, because I was coming back outside and the storm door was swinging shut in front of me. I reached out to catch the door before it closed, only my hand hit the glass instead of the metal bar across the middle, and I went straight through it.

I remember reaching out, and then I remember being on my hands and knees on the patio on the other side. I think I was crying. There must have been broken glass all around me.

I remember my mom rushing over and taking me back into the garage, sitting me down, calling our pediatrician. I was staring at a small bleeding cut on the back of my left hand.

I remember riding in the car on the way to the doctor, and my mom saying she was more worried about the cut on my face than the one on my hand. I don't think I'd realized there was one on my face.

I remember lying back on the table at the pediatrician's, the doctor saying we didn't need to go to the emergency room, while my mom and sister watched from the bench in the corner (my mom said years later that it was one of the worst things she'd felt, watching me be stitched up on that table). I remember the sting of the local anesthetic at the top of my nose where the cut was, and the tug of the stitches (four) going in. I don't remember being frightened, only sniffly and maybe a little stunned. I remember the doctor saying there shouldn't be much of a scar. (There is one, but it's pale, a little white slash on the right side of my nose emerging from beneath my glasses nosepad.)

I remember that afterwards, my parents replaced the glass in the storm door with metal screens.
 
 

Comments

[roga.livejournal.com]

Yay memoryfest! I think I'll have to go back and reread my posts from last year, just to make sure I'm not repeating anything, because I can be senile that way and tell the same story over and over again.

Falling through the door sounds eeps, terrifying (and the kind of situation where you cry because you're scared, not because it hurts). I never really got injured when I was a kid, nothing more serious than skimmed knees. Your story reminds me of a book I loved to read when I was eight: Gadi Taub's Things I Keep To Myself, which was a collection of short stories told from the POV of a maybe ten year old boy. It was one of the only books in Hebrew I read when I was in the US, and the fact that it talked about everyday things, things that happened in school, and even a little romance (the narrator was in love with a girl in class but was afraid to tell her) - kind of like the Wonder Years - made me feel very adult when I read it. My favorite story was about the time his younger sister, Tali, fell through a glass window, got a deep cut on her forehead, and they had to take her to a hospital. That's all I remember from the entire book, really - sitting on my beige wall-to-wall carpet in California, and imagining gray and white playgrounds and hospitals in Tel Aviv, and a brother taking care of his little sister.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

That sounds lovely. A little touch of day-to-day life in a home you'd left. Did you wish for an older brother of your own?

This was the most traumatic injury I had as a kid -- that and chicken pox, which was during the same summer. My sister wasn't so lucky -- she broke her leg when she was two.

I think I'll have to go back and reread my posts from last year, just to make sure I'm not repeating anything

Ha. That's one of the main reasons I put together those index posts -- so I don't post the same memory twice.

[roga.livejournal.com]

Ha. That's one of the main reasons I put together those index posts -- so I don't post the same memory twice.

I did that too last year, and probably will again.

Chicken pox wasn't really traumatic for me - I was very young when I had it, and all I can remember is that it was with my sister, and we were at our grandmother's - being so, it couldn't have been that bad.

Did you wish for an older brother of your own?

I don't think so, not at that point. If anything, I identified with him, because I had a younger sister too, and what he did - putting a wet rag on her forehead and taking her to the hospital - seemed very heroic, and I wanted to take care of my sister heroically too. (Especially when, more often than not I ended up being the one who injured her in the first place.)

Later on, at times, I did wish I'd had an older brother. I think having an older brother kind of breaks you into teenagerhood and adulthood more gently, because you're not the first to talk about or discover things, you have someone's example to follow. I also think that girls with brothers in general have an easier time interacting with boys, especially in younger years, although I say that with no scientific basis. Boys, to me, were a completely foreign world, and the first time I started having guy friends was in the army, where work allows you to get to know people you wouldn't have before.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

I'm a little envious that you actually remember your childhood... and I have no idea why I don't.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Oddly, all my injuries seem to say something about me or the people I interact with. Like how I split my head open as a three-year-old because I was hyper indoors and ran into the corner of a filing cabinet. Or how I split my head open again in first grade by slamming into the side of a street post when running for the bus. I missed the bus, got a taxi to the hospital, got my father's scarf all bloody, and still got to school that day. I remember the mix of disappointment of still having to go in that day and embarrassment at showing up so conspicuously late to the classroom in the middle of the day. If I had to be there, I wanted not to stand out in any way.

[jadesfire.livejournal.com]

Oh, ouch. It must have been terrifying for your mom, but at least you were alright.

I didn't go through a glass window. I bounced. We used to take all our family holidays in the same hotel in Mallorca, and it's where some of my happiest memories are from. Our room had 3 beds (me, mum and my godmother who used to come with us) against one wall, leaving a space at the other end for walking up and down, to get to the balcony door. Or, if you're me and you're six years old, sliding up and down the tiles on. Unfortunately, I misjudged my slide just a tad - I was a bit of a klutz even then - and couldn't stop before I reached the door. Fortunately, it didn't break, but I all-but knocked myself out, and remember lying on my mum's bed, staring at the ceiling as she put a cold flannel on my head.

My forehead is actually bumpier than it should be, thanks to an incident with a nail when I was a toddler. It seems I've always had a thing about banging my head on things - my mum once dropped the car boot down onto me, and I was always walking into things at school. And I won't begin to list the number of cupboard doors I've stood up into...

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Interesting. At about what age do you start remembering things?

[elynittria.livejournal.com]

I also think that girls with brothers in general have an easier time interacting with boys, especially in younger years, although I say that with no scientific basis.

I think having an older brother definitely helped me feel comfortable with boys as human beings (but not, later on, with guys as possible romantic partners). But then again, maybe the fact that I was a total tomboy had a lot to do with that ease of interaction: I always preferred playing with Hot Wheels and rubberband-powered airplanes than with dolls.

Edited to fix a stylistic issue.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Eek. I sympathize with not wanting to call attention to yourself. Did you get to school very late? Did your head hurt, or had they put you on some nice painkillers?

I slipped on some ice once in our front yard, walking home from school during a winter filled with ice- and snowstorms, and hitting my head, but not badly, just enough to bring tears to my eyes and a sense of hurt/anger the way minor head injuries do. I was supposed to go to Hebrew school that evening and tried to use the fall to get out of it (I hated it there, unlike regular school), but clearly I was fine and my mom made me go.

[walking-miracle.livejournal.com]

This seems like fun

My 'memory' is not mine, it happened to my brother when he was about 8, but it's a story similar to yours, so why not share. He and my then 6 year old cousin were doing something like tossing a ball between them while I was upstairs sleeping, they were looking after me. Anyway, somehow my brother punched his hand through the glass in one of the doors at home, and he got really bad cuts right in that very bad area to cut yourself, he was very lucky that they were not worse though.

So there they were, two scared little kids, who ended up knowing exactly what to do. My cousin's mom is a doctor, so he somehow knew to go into the bathroom and get lots of gauze and stuff to put on the wounds, and then to call the hospital (not 911, because he had been told the direct number to the hospital or something like that, if he ever needed to talk to him mom), and when someone answered he clearly stated that his mom was a doctor, could they please go get her, because his cousin was bleeding really bad. Amazing composure from a 6 year old kid.

My mom has told us many times since that coming back to the house, and meeting an ambulance and police cars was one of the scariest things she's ever witnessed. This was all back when nobody had cellphones.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

There are things I "remember" because I've been told about them, but very few things I remember on my own. The things I do remember are very strange. Little snippets of conversations, mostly.

The solid stuff starts somewhere in my late twenties.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Huh. That must be a strange, disconnecting feeling, not remembering yourself for so long.

My dad was glued to his video camera while my sister and I were growing up, so sometimes I have "memories" that I suspect are really recollections of watching those home movies.

[jadesfire.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. I have incredibly clear snippets and memories from about the age of 10 onwards, and quite a lot from before that, but I know there was a whole heap of HUGE stuff that happened when I was about 6 that I've completely and utterly forgotten. Not a single thing. My family did a good job of shielding me from it, but it's the only time I know that the whole 'self-protection' forgetting has kicked in.

I can't imagine not being able to remember it - do you have photographs and things from that time?

[theninth.livejournal.com]

do you have photographs and things from that time?

No, actually. Apparently in my "awkward teenage years" I hid all the photo albums somewhere in the house. No one knows where they are.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

I don't know that it is strange, since it's not like I recently forgot things. It's more like my personal life isn't as important to me as things I've learned, so I just forgot it to make room. "My first kiss? Who needs that. We can put Star Wars trivia there!"

[jadesfire.livejournal.com]

...thereby showing a remarkable level of resourcefulness and ingenuity :) That's quite impressive, in its own way. I can't imagine not having the photo albums from my childhood, in the same way as I can't imagine not having the memories. It's fascinating how people's brains treat information differently, and prioritise different things. I'm brilliant at 'what colour were the tiles in our old bathroom?' but suck at 'where did I put my keys'...

[purridot.livejournal.com]

You were so brave! Your poor mother; she must have been so worried.

I have a 1.5 inch deep scar on my cheek, which I hardly ever notice because it doesn't have any scar tissue (I only notice it when I'm putting on makeup). My mom tells my I was badly scratched by a cat as a child, and she freaked out and rushed me to the doctor, yet I have absolutely no memory of it!

[mer-duff.livejournal.com]

That must have been terrifying - I'm glad you emerged only minorly scathed.

I once started a conversation with my friend K, "The first time I nearly blinded myself as a child..." That's as far as I got, because he would not let that statement go (I used the exchange in a House story - didn't finish it either).

I'm not sure which story I was going to tell K (and yes, there are enough near-blinding stories that I get them confused), but this was not one of them :)

When I was in Grade 3, they built a new "adventure playground" at my school - though all it really consisted of was a couple of teeter-totters, a jungle gym, and a swingset. The teeter-totter was the star attraction, though. It was carved from a log and was big enough and solid enough that you could get five kids on either end quite easily. Which meant, of course, that we crowded as many kids on it as we could, some sitting, some standing and balancing. I was standing one day, and I don't know if one end dropped abruptly or I just lost my balance, but I fell face-first onto a rock and gashed my mouth. My mother taught at the school, so I remember lying on the ground bleeding, while someone ran to get her. I can't remember if I needed stitches, though I do remember getting carried to the nurse's office and my mother in near-hysterics. And I remember that we weren't allowed to have more than two kids on either end of the teeter-totter for awhile after that...

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

"My first kiss? Who needs that. We can put Star Wars trivia there!"

I like your sense of priorities. For me it's more: "Loosing my virginity or learning Super Smash Bro.s? ...Wait, those were actually the same occurrence." "First kiss" is filed under "Buffy DVD menus".

[bironic.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking that you must have a veritable volume of scar stories, and lo, your comment did appear.

Playgrounds. There's really no way to make them safe, is there? And should they be completely protective anyway? Maybe they are roundabout ways to teach kids that they're susceptible to injury and need to be careful at an early age.

I fell face-first onto a rock and gashed my mouth.

Ow! And mouth injuries bleed. Do you remember ice packs or anything?

That must have been terrifying - I'm glad you emerged only minorly scathed.

I am glad too. I think it was over so quickly that there wasn't time for terror, really. Just right through the thing, and then there must have been some pain or shock afterwards, but I don't really remember.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

How young were you, do you know? Clearly it didn't traumatize you so badly that it turned you off cats when you grew up. :)

Your poor mother; she must have been so worried.

She frets, which I love and appreciate but still laugh at sometimes. One of my favorite fretting stories was when I had my wisdom teeth out when I was ~14. I was on codeine, which is supposed to make you sleepy, but she was so wrung out from anticipating the surgery and its aftermath (she'd had hers out one at a time a few years before, using somewhat older techniques, and had swollen up and been miserable) that she was the one who fell asleep while I lounged on the couch and read The Stand.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Yikes. Can we interpret it as your having been brought up in such a wonderful, safe and secure environment that you didn't worry about things like bodily harm, knowing you'd be taken care of if something happened?

I bounced.

Heh. Like a Bumble. (At first I thought you meant you went through and bounced when you hit bottom! Eek.)

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Hi there!

That is amazingly resourceful for such young kids -- and boys besides. ;)

I can only imagine the terror your mom felt when she saw all those flashing lights in front of the house, and how relieved she must have been when she found out what had happened and that your brother would be okay.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

I don't think there were painkillers involved other than aspirin or Tylenol. It bled a lot, because head wounds tend to, but it wasn't actually a very bad injury. If the street post had been cylindrical I probably wouldn't have had more than a nasty bruise, but the post was of the type that's a flat pane of metal folded into a U shape, and I hit my forehead on one of the edges. They just put a band-aid on it, and I made it to school by lunch time. The head wound when I was three was a little more serious, requiring stitches.

I was supposed to go to Hebrew school that evening and tried to use the fall to get out of it (I hated it there, unlike regular school)

I can sympathize. I got myself kicked out of CCD (Catholic sunday school), or rather, my parents stopped sending me when they realized I would cause more trouble than was worth putting up with, something they'd already done for my elder brother years earlier. My father is annoyed to this day that he has raised "heathen children" (his phrase).

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

Thankfully I've never had a traumatic injury like that. I think the worst I had was being bitten by a dog when delivering newspapers. The pooch tried to take a nice chunk of thigh.

I do remember when my youngest brother had febrile convulsions. He was about 8 months old (I was about 7). That was scary--he turned blue and wouldn't stop jerking.