Two Sides Of The Same Coin

I remember my childhood in bits and pieces, like framed pictures of specific events that exist independently of all the other memories. There was the time I challenged my brother to a foot race down the steps of the rocky hill on the side of my grandfather’s house. My mother warned us to never run down the hill lest we injure ourselves. But that did not thwart us at all. We waited for her to go to work and proceeded with our plans. What else was there to do in the hot summer sun but run, hide, play, and take in all of the day’s light. There was also the time I climbed the mango tree in my grandfather’s backyard and got stuck. So I snacked on mangoes and hoped the house girl would find me before my grandfather came home. The Haitian sun was always more bearable in the shade of a tree and a cool breeze, and this tree was my favorite. It had the juiciest mangoes, branches that extended every which way, and was so full it shaded almost the entire courtyard. 

My grandfather, a tall, lanky man with a balding spot at the top of his head that he regularly covered with a gray felt hat; a hat that looked like it had seen as many good and bad days as he had, hated when we climbed his mango tree. He’d complain that we’d shake the fruit right out and that they’d burst and spoil when they fell on the ground. Though he was a man of few words, he spoke with a deep voice; you could not help but stop whatever you were doing and listen. 

Now, as I watch my daughter play in the grass under the tall oak tree in our yard, I wonder how much she’ll remember. I wondered if this day of swinging in the shade, twirling in the specks of sunlight, and inspecting blades of grass for ladybugs would make it into the archives of her memories. I wondered if I would be part of this memory or if I would fade into the fuzzy details of the day. Nothing of particular significance happened to me on the day that I got stuck in my grandfather’s mango tree. Nothing I remember, at least. It was not the first time I had been stuck in a tree. Climbing was never the issue; it was always the trip down that scared me. And yet, I remember that moment, the juiciness of the mango, how sticky my fingers got, and the look on my grandfather’s face when he found me in the tree. 

But the thing about memories is that the more you member them, the less reliable they become. My mother, who grew up in that house, does not remember a mango tree. No matter how much I described it. 

“Not my father’s house,” she would say. “We were never allowed in the courtyard. How would you have gotten to a tree?” She’d ask in wonderment and confusion. I’m sure, if she could, my mother would call me a liar. But, instead, she said, “these memories are not yours, dear,” and waved me off, as all Haitian parents do. As if my memories could somehow belong to someone else. It did not matter. If my memories did not reconcile with hers, it was as though they never were. 

I remember visiting my grandfather before he passed. I wanted so badly to believe my memories and hold on to that day as it was; I booked a flight and made the one thousand five hundred mile journey back to Haiti to ask him about the day he found me in the mango tree. 

“My child!” he exclaimed with a smile and a warm embrace. In his arms and the warmth of his body, I felt that it had been too long since our last embrace. “What has an old man done to deserve this visit?” His voice, scent, the breeze, and the faint sounds of life passing just beyond the house gates all reminded me of how much I had missed home. It brought tears to my eyes that surprised us both. 

“Do not cry,” he quipped “you are here now.” 

And I remembered how uncomfortable tears made him feel. I never understood how a military man with so much strength and discipline could handle bullets, bombs, and the chaos of the battlefield yet floundered at the sight of tears. It made me smile. We sat in silence for some time on the bench facing the courtyard, enjoying the afternoon breeze and the evening sun. 

“Do you remember the mango tree, grandpa?” I asked him.

“You mean this one right there? That you fell off of after I told you not to climb it?” He responded affectionately while pointing at the tree that cast shade on us. 

“Yes,” I smiled. I had forgotten that part. Or maybe I had blocked it out of my memory entirely. “Mama said we were never allowed in the courtyard.”

“The courtyard? My courtyard?” He interrupted. 

“Yes. She said,”— 

“No.” He interrupted again, this time more certain. “Not my daughter. She would not say such a thing,” he continued shaking his head. “She and the boys were always in the yard, climbing my trees and spoiling my mangoes,” he chuckled. “No matter how much I insisted or how many times I punished you, I could not keep you off of it.”

“You mean mama, right?”

“What?”

“You mean you could not keep mama off of it.”

“Right,” he replied, almost in a whisper, and looked at me as though it were for the first time. “That’s what I said. Maybe she is confused,” he continued. “Those memories aren’t hers.” 

I remember we sat in silence afterward. The evening became dusk, and our versions of events filled up the space between us. I wonder if there will come a day when I will dismiss my daughter’s recollection of her life. If this disconnect is a right of passage into motherhood, and if she will quietly accept it as I have.