Us kids in the back seat of the car having a great time rolling around and just being silly, all of us without seatbelts or car seats.
The next thing I remember is just me being all about me and looking around some place where there was a lot of people and things for sale. I remember seeing a lot of phones in circular patterns. I was only two years old, so the world looks a little different from only a little bit off the ground. I remember my dad and an older lady, (I think maybe was my aunt or my dad’s mom) doing some sort of business or talking and not paying attention. I remember looking around at this large and adventurous place in wonder. I turned around and walked a little ways away. I saw a lot of hands passing by, as hands were just above my eye line in height. I grabbed onto someone’s pants, thinking it was someone who was mine and it wasn’t! As soon as I realized I had walked away and grabbed onto a stranger, I let go and started screaming for my daddy. I was running around looking for my daddy, lost at what I now know was an airport, probably Sky Harbor Airport or Frankfurt Airport.
Someone came up to me and I was crying; they found my dad. I held onto his hand tight from here on out. He smoked Salem Lights and took several smoke breaks. While he was smoking I remember seeing little sandboxes and was putting my hand in them, squishing around, licking my fingers and then tasting the grittiness of what was actually indoor ashtrays. How I didn’t catch some disease is probably pure luck. I tasted everything then. I put my mouth on the phone booth metal phone cords and just about anything else that looked interesting or new.
My next memory is sitting at a large wooden table and eating some food with a lot of people and getting a lot of attention by a few older ladies. I loved the attention and the food; this was fun! But… where am I? I didn’t even care or wonder where I was at; all this new stimulation was captivating me. I feel like I was separate from Bennie and Tatiana, because they are not in so many of my earliest memories on a constant basis; but being so young, it could just be not remembering.
I wake up and have these ladies get me ready, feed me and they are talking really funny; I loved them and immediately began trying to mirror the way they were talking, initially to be funny… but then to please them, because the more I would copy them – the more happy they became and the more attention I would get. These women did the same thing everyday. They were always there, teaching and taking care of me. I would see Bennie and Tatiana sometimes during meals and playtime. I realize I don’t know where my dad is though.
I ask for my dad; I miss him so much. I was just told “he went to work and will be back.” I always accepted that answer. Later I find out he had left back to the United States and we were in Germany being cared for, basically being hidden while my dad worked out all the details and legalities to keep us kids and get full custody. I think back to this, and always wonder how this could even happen. How can kids just go to another country, taken from their mother… left there, dad leaves and does what he needs to in the States? How can a mother just not lose her shit by having her twin girls and baby boy ripped from her? How can a dad be Ok with all of this? So many questions that come from this time – later in my life though. For now, I am two years old and having a blast, eating new food, and a lot of it! I am also learning that the more I show these ladies stuff I know, the more excited and happy they get and the more attention and treats I get. Life is so much fun. I do miss my dad. I don’t even have any thoughts of my mom though. I always thought it was and is so weird that I can remember so far back and so many things, but only have 2 memories of my biological mom when I was a baby, and they are minor events without extraordinaire. I didn’t miss her at all; I didn’t even remember I had her. It was like my memory had been erased of her. Tatiana and Bennie never spoke of her either; I don’t think they remembered her either. I never asked, because I didn’t really even know of here or that I had someone other than my dad till a few years later.
These were the best years of my childhood.