Melville Cooke

I do not know at what age my conscious memories begin, although I can recall picking John Crow beads at the back hedge of Summit Prep School in Morant Bay, St. Thomas, run by Mrs. Fyffe. And that was well before I went to first grade in primary school, so I must have been at most, four.

(Of course, the reality of the hedge is much smaller than the memory. I passed by a few months ago and had a good laugh at how much closer it is than the huge distance I remember.)

Similarly, I do not know at what age our two daughters' memories will begin, even though I have innumerable enduring images of them both. For the older, Amani, one was at Cornwall College, Montego Bay, St. James, before she started walking. Pulling herself up by a bookcase, she held on to the collected works of William Shakespeare (hardcover, no less) which promptly fell on her chest. I will never forget the arms and legs sticking out from under the book, wiggling as she hollered. Talk about heavy reading.

The mystery continues

Then for the younger Asmahani-Aza, a cheese lover if ever there was one, there was a time just after she started walking and could open the refrigerator that the cheese went missing. A thorough search of said fridge did not turn up said cheese and the mystery continued. Until it was time to shift Asmahani from where she had fallen asleep, all tucked in, and the case was solved. She had the cheese clutched in one hand, liberated from the fridge, but she was so tired that she had fallen asleep before taking a nibble.

As our children grow older, my memories of them grow more precious and, at the same time, my curiosity about when their memories of their parents will begin to increase. This gap between where a parent's memories of their child begin and when the child actually remembers the parent, fascinates and frightens me. It is fascinating that two human beings can be so close (hopefully) and yet only one has memories of the other's earliest, formative years; it is frightening that a child may just remember a parent first as an angry, snarling creature. And we all have those angry moments.

For me, a large part of parenting is the parent providing happy memories for the child. I have met so many adults who do not have a store of happy memories to draw on in the lean, grown-up times when moments of genuine happiness and peace of mind are so few and far between. That storehouse, or deposit account even, is even more important for women, with the lodgements coming from their father.

I am convinced that many a woman is subconsciously overcompensating for a father's missing love by accepting the scraps of affection, real or feigned, tossed their way by men. They will take the abuse, emotional and physical, as long as there is some glimmer of affection.

And, after all, there is hardly an outstanding memory of happy moments, filled with love, to be used as a reference point.

So I tell my daughters that I love them. Regularly. Very regularly. I do not know what their first memory of me expressing my love for them, to them, will be, but I am covering my bases. Sure, I am grumpy many times and angry as well, because as somebody said to me recently, children are specially designed to drive you to the verge of committing serious crime, but that is a part of growing up, for both child and parent. But the love and the happy times are what I want them to have to draw upon when they are adults and the nasty end of relationships and work hit.

I cannot give more and I would be ashamed to give less.

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.