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You never forget how to ride a bike...
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Matthew had the strangest look on his face, sort of faraway, inward, and sad.
“My fazzer died.”
“Daddy didn’t die. He’s right there in the next room.”
“No, my other fazzer.”
“You have another father?”
“Yeah, and he died. He died.” My two-year-old son’s lower lip quivered, then he burst into tears.
A few weeks later, he got the same strange look, and began telling me about how he likes to jump out of planes with a “sheet that has strings.” But one time, he said, the “sheet” didn’t work so he fell and fell to the ground. His face looked frightened and surprised as he described it.
“But you were all right, weren’t you?” I asked, thinking he was telling me a story, knowing what kind of information he’d been exposed to on television and storybooks, but not recalling anything he’d ever seen about parachutes or skydiving.
“No,” he said. “I died.” He was calm and matter-of-fact about it, seeming to look at some faraway thing in his mind.
It was interesting to me that a two-year-old had an understanding of death so sophisticated that he could apply it to his “fazzer”, know it was a permanent loss, and succumb to grief. It was also interesting that a two-year-old could refer to his own death. However, that sophistication seemed limited to the two short periods of time when he had that “strange look”. His precocious grasp of death passed with the moment, and he didn’t recall anything he’d told me afterward.
I worked for an airline, so we flew frequently. Every time we boarded a plane, Matthew talked about jumping out of it. He pressed against the window impatiently and talked about skydiving, and how he wanted to learn how, and that he wished he could do it now. Every flight. Every time.
The problem was, he had a fear of falling. At Six Flags he would always beg to go on the parachute ride. We always took him there and stood in that line. As we got closer to the front, he’d begin to show anxiety. When we reached the front of the line, he’d say he didn’t want to do it anymore. Years later, with Matthew grown, I’m not sure if he’s ever made it onto that ride. He now knows he wouldn’t like it, after experiencing the Tower of Terror at Disney World, which consists of suddenly dropping a story or two several times. He just hated that ride, and rides like it, so he probably wouldn’t bother
He still occasionally talks about skydiving. He’s never tried it, though, and I suspect he never will.
My younger son Peter had night terrors as a baby. They are not like nightmares, because you can’t rouse the child to comfort him. He’s moaning from somewhere far, far away, and you can’t reach him. You can only hold him and watch him for an hour or more while he apparently suffers, and you can do nothing to help. I always wondered what Peter was seeing or experiencing, when he had them.
After Peter came along I listened for revelations similar to Matthew’s that might give me a clue about him and where he came from, but he was two, and then three years old, and they still didn’t come. Finally when he was four he began talking. We lived near farmland, and each time we passed a two-story white farmhouse, Peter shouted, “That’s my grandfather’s house!” His “other” parents were dead, Peter told me. He lived on the farm with his grandfather and his two elderly aunts, “until the fire. Then I ran away, and came here.” (Perhaps this explained his night terrors, I wondered? Can they be something more than mere brain circuitry?)
He also now has no recollection of his memories, though he once said he keeps seeing “a big red barn.”
Both children came to us already knowing how to ride a bike - it's apparently true, that you never forget how to ride a bike. We tried training wheels, but they didn’t need them. They both just hopped on the bike and rode without wobbling or falling. That’s a phenomenon I suspect we’ll be seeing more and more, as 20th century souls begin to queue up for their return.
Children tell us. We only have to listen, and we have to do this when they're small because the memories are fleeting, and very soon they are lost.
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