Revising My History–Why Ever Not?

We revisited our personal history many years ago.

We drove across the country in a Volkswagen bus visiting friends, relatives and our family history from Los Angeles to Maine.

My favorite spot required a weekend visit because I longed to spend time revisiting our older boys’ birthplace: Groton, Connecticut.

Home in Connecticut

My life in those years revolved around our home on a granite ledge beside the US Naval submarine base, the submarine community itself, Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church and the Groton Public Library.

I regularly drove the circuit with our two older boys in tow.

To get the full effect on our way to church that Sunday morning in 1997, we started from the Navy lodge and went past where we once lived.

Our house was purchased by the Navy base and torn down years before, so it was just the location we paused to admire from the side of the road.

We peered up at the foliage and saw the line of Christmas trees. They were planted by our predecessors high on a granite ledge above Route 12, but one year we’d cut down our tree from our very own yard.

Only my husband and I remembered that Christmas.

How about the town?

The older two children, fourteen and sixteen that year, shook their heads. The younger two were born on the west coast. Our pilgrimage was pre-history to them.

I directed my husband to continue down Route 12, past the mini-mart where I always stopped to buy The New York Times on Sunday mornings (doing the crossword puzzle is still a weekly routine).

We turned left on Gunjywamp Road, through Navy housing, and then the questions began.

“How did you know to turn on this road?” one child asked.

“This was the way to church, don’t you remember?” I said.

No.

“There’s Shepherd of the Sea Chapel, we’d visit there from time to time. Remember? How about the Navy Exchange mini-mart?”

No.

“Do you remember the rock walls that run along the north side of the road? Your godparents lived just up this street, J. You played at their house all the time, C. Remember?”

No.

“Is that where they lived?” My husband slowed the car. “I thought we lived closer to them.”

The children stared out the window at the oak trees and stone walls, new scenery to them.

The blood sang in my veins with a joy I could scarcely contain.

Here’s where I rescued the woman with the shopping cart and three children, there’s where we held Bible study.

My friend Penny and I homeschooled our preschoolers at that house. The boys rode a snow saucer down the nearby hill.

I could scarcely sit still as the memories flooded with a vibrancy that made me feel years younger. Where had the time gone?

Really? Just a visitor?

“I’m really sorry, Michelle,” my husband finally said. “But I didn’t really live here those six years. This was where you and the boys lived; I just visited from time to time.”

I stared at him, incredulous. “You don’t remember?”

“Here’s the Gold Star Highway. Which way do I turn?”

My heart sank. “Left. Turn right at the light.”

How could they not remember any of this?

I gazed back at the traitor children, now so grown and forward thinking. C did not remember the first six years of his life?

I was a pregnant twenty-four year-old when we moved to Groton, Connecticut; a pregnant thirty year-old when we left.

I spent most of my twenties  in New England relishing the climate, the food, the life.

And no one in the car recalled anything about that time. Well, maybe my husband in his blurry-eyed exhaustion from submarine duty.

Did anyone I loved remember me in the prime of my life?

If they didn’t, was that time wasted?

I decided it was time to do a little revisionist history. After all, who could contradict me?

“Those were such good days,” I began, pointing to the turns as my husband drove.

“Dinner was always complete with a protein, vegetables and salad. We always ate on time. Laundry was a breeze and always folded neatly and put away. I read to you children for countless hours [true], and we played all the time. You never cried, I was never cross, my figure was perfect and I always smiled.”

Really?

Hey, if I’m the only one with the memory, I’m going to make it a happy one for me!

Later in that trip we spent time with folks who had vivid stories to tell about how wonderful and beautiful I was during our Groton years.

My husband agreed with them. I’m not so sure about the children . . .