Chapter 3 - Stolen Moments

The new Michael's birth came with no complications. The weather hadn't cooperated, brewing up a small snow storm that made my father's trip to the hospital on the mid-December night more difficult than it should have been. But everyone made it there safely, and he came into the world with a spank and a cry at 7:18 am in the morning.

As the nurse wrapped him in a blanket, and placed him tenderly in my mother's arms, I tried to enter his body. Wanting so much to fix the anguished memories of my own first day, I willed myself to take his place. But instead of seeing my mother's face through his untrained eyes, I glimpsed an utter blackness. An absence of light, sound, sensation took hold of me for a period of time I couldn't measure, as if I had lapsed into complete emptiness.

With a sudden flood of light, I found myself still inside the room, looking on the scene once again as an outsider. My father and Timmy had since come into the room. Dad stroked my mother's hair as they both stared down at the blotchy skin, the patchy black hair, the midnight blue eyes of my newborn brother's exposed head.

As much as I might want it, I couldn't have my brother's life. I could only watch and pretend it was mine. And from that first day in the hospital, to the day they took him home, to the days after filled with rocking and lullabies and cooing and pampering, that's just what I did.

From infant to toddler to young boy, I watched little Michael's young life unfold, trying to picture myself having the same joys, tears and confusion. His little brain developed, and with it the flash of consciousness informed by flickering memories. The reactions, wants and needs that would shape his adult life began forming from the isolated incidents that would live on only as seemingly disconnected pictures from a movie made long ago, sepia toned and incoherent.

Later in life, he may remember the sharp pain of a scraped knee after tripping on the asphalt driveway when three; the loud screaming, uncontrolled, as he ran toward his mother; the soft kiss of her lips on the wound and the calming sound of her voice.

He may remember the first and only meeting with his paternal grandparents in New York, who died too soon after; the plastic covered couch; the strange green cloth chair that seemed to swallow him up; the pure joy of running through the backyard laughing as he chased the dog.

He may remember the anger in his father's voice after Timmy tricked him into using a curse word; the harsh slap, so unexpected; the flow of tears and confusion.

The same images come back to me, and no matter how hard I try, I can't replace his face with mine. I don't even have the memory of a face to superimpose. There are infinite moments that I'd like to steal, but can't. It is a past that I'll always see more vividly than he will, and only in that sense do I own it more than he does. Only in that way can I steal it back from him. And for that past to bring me happiness, I began to realize, I had to in some way keep the story that flowed from it on track, to ensure it ended up the way I wanted it to.

Later, my view and understanding of Michael's past, present and future, would become more interconnected; the images of all three mixing before my eyes as the possible paths leading out of each moment narrowed into fewer and fewer destinations. The choices of childhood would shape the actions of adolescence, which in turn would determine the possibilities of adulthood.