Scattered Pictures #3: My First “Wedding”
Vincent O’Keefe wonders, where does conscious identity begin? Featuring The Carpenters, Descartes, and a Big Wheel
“I remember, therefore I am.”
Back in college a few decades ago, this was my revision of Rene Descartes’ famous “cogito, ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am” formulation.
While flirting with becoming a philosophy major in those days, I was obsessed with questions about childhood memories, aging, and identity-formation. I found Descartes’ emphasis on intuition frustrating, because what good is the life of the mind if none of it is remembered?
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It was certain vivid, identity-defining memories that informed my Descartes revision, beginning with this one:
The scene is my childhood home in April, 1974. I’m 4 years old and the youngest of six children in my family, with three older brothers and two older sisters. One of our favorite activities is to take turns standing near the “hi-fi” record player and singing along to The Carpenters’ popular Singles 1969-73 album with the brown cover. Classics like “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Top of the World,” and “Close to You” by the brother-and-sister duo permeate our home’s airwaves.
Imagine my delight, then, when I hear that Richard and Karen Carpenter will soon play a concert in Niagara Falls, NY, our hometown. Feel my dismay, however, when I learn that even though my parents will be taking my five siblings to the show, they determine I am too young to go. While they apologize profusely, I am crestfallen and have to endure a babysitter while my parents and siblings frolic on concert night.
Cut to the next morning when I trudge to the breakfast table and my parents tell me there’s a gift for me in the next room. Still stinging from feeling left out, I go to the living room and see something covered by a beige blanket.
“Go ahead and uncover it,” my dad says.
While flirting with becoming a philosophy major in those days, I was obsessed with questions about childhood memories, aging, and identity-formation. I found Descartes’ emphasis on intuition frustrating, because what good is the life of the mind if none of it is remembered?
As I slide the blanket off the gift, there it is: a Big Wheel—the popular toy tricycle invented in 1969, which became very popular in the 1970s. It has a low seat, a 16-inch front wheel, two smaller wheels in the back, and a hand brake that made for thrilling, low-center-of-gravity skids on all kinds of pavement.
I can’t believe my eyes. I’m sure I had been begging for one, because some neighborhood kids already had them, but my parents were usually late adopters of trends, partly due to the cost of raising such a large family.
Looking back, that Big Wheel was a big deal. It symbolized how much my parents cherished and listened to me, providing a strong foundation for my identity and growth. All my disappointment at not attending the Carpenters’ concert dissolved, and I was off to the races in my new vehicle. As far as I knew, this was being “on top of the world.”
***
Later, my thesis evolved as I reflected back on a different moment from my life as a 4-year-old that I do not remember: my first wedding.
Or, “wedding.” I can explain.
One of my older sisters was very protective of me as a child and showed her love in a variety of ways—for example, reading me stories like “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” involving me in tea parties when I wasn’t playing toy demolition derby with my friends, and occasionally marrying me off to neighborhood girls.
Fortunately, I still have a black-and-white picture of my first wedding, because I do not consciously remember it. But there I am at age 4 in my bowl-cut hair and striped shirt, side-by-side with one of my neighbors, a little girl.
Such a treasured photograph indicates to me that although we might not remember periods of our lives, that does not mean we no longer “are.” For many, the bookends of life—early childhood and the late stages of life—are replete with experiences that may or may not be remembered consciously, but are no less meaningful either way.
My sister’s head is visible in the background, in the place where a wedding officiant would stand, to run the ceremony. What is most humorous is that instead of actually kissing, the girl and I are rubbing noses as we close our eyes and smile at each other. (I like to imagine The Carpenters’ popular wedding song, “We’ve Only Just Begun,” with its “white lace and promises” playing in the background.)
Such a treasured photograph indicates to me that although we might not remember periods of our lives, that does not mean we no longer “are.” For many, the bookends of life—early childhood and the late stages of life—are replete with experiences that may or may not be remembered consciously, but are no less meaningful either way.
For example, during our early years it is often our parents, older siblings, and older friends who act as memory curators for us via stories, photographs, and artifacts of our younger selves. Later in life, and even after one’s death, our children, younger siblings, and friends frequently perform the same service.
In my case, both my parents struggled with memory loss before they passed away several years ago. But thanks in part to my primal memory of their amazing Big Wheel gift in 1974, I can revise Descartes one more time with confidence:
“I still remember, therefore they still are.”
Check out the rest of the Scattered Pictures series.
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Thank you so much for this personal story. I totally enjoyed reading it, but my favorite line is the final one. My grandmother, a Jewish lady with very little religion, once told me that her belief in the afterlife was that as long as someone still remembered her, her spirit survived. I am now 82 and I still remember her. It is my intention to keep her alive until I can join her wherever she is.
Hi Vincent, this is your cousin, Pat Fitzgerald, Uncle Leo's youngest. I so enjoyed your post. It all brings back so many memories for me. What you wrote made me realize that forgetting our memories is not the worst thing because they are still within us. They are us. Thank you!