2204 The Before-Mommy

Friday, January 9, 2009

[This is all absolutely true.]

In about 1978, when Daughter was 3 years old, she was very verbal. She had been speaking in three and four word sentences at 9 months, and then when she realized no one but her Mommy could understand her ("yellow" was "eeoo", for example), she stopped. When she started up again at 2, she had a huge vocabulary, near perfect pronunciation, structure, and grammar.

I'd had three miscarriages and a stillbirth before her. I was afraid she'd be all I'd have (I was 31 when she was born), so she was a 100% natural birth, and I was very involved with her. She'd never at that point even been left with a sitter. She had never been exposed to anything that I wasn't aware of. She had been enrolled in a thrice-weekly program for exceptional children starting at 14 months, but even there I knew about everything she saw and did.

And I know that she'd never seen or heard of most of the things she told me about having seen and experienced before coming to live with me.

I was a bit surprised when one day I was starting supper, and she asked what we were having, and when I said "sausage", she said, "Oooo, I like sausage. My before-Mommy used to make that all the time."

Me: "Your before-Mommy? What before-Mommy?"
She: "The Mommy I had before I came to you."
Me: "You had a Mommy before me?"
She: (Impatiently) "Yes!" (Frustrated) "The Mommy I had before I died and came to you!"
Me: "Oh. You had a Mommy you lived with, and then you died, and then you came to me?"
She rolled her eyes, stamped her foot, and went off to play with the dog.

Now, keep in mind, she's three. This is the same kid who, more than a year later, burst into tears when she discovered I had once been a child - "But whooooo took care of meeeee when yooooooou were a baby?" I told her Gramma took care of both of us, and that satisfied her. To a child of three, what is now always was and always will be. So the idea of a before, especially where Mommy is concerned, is beyond inconceivable.)

The next time Before-Mommy came up I was putting something in the oven, and she said, "My before-Mommy would really like that oven."

Me: "She didn't have an oven?"
She: "Yes, she had one, but not like that."
Me: "What was hers like?"
She: "It wasn't iron. It was like clay, and it was shaped like this (arms swinging in a large high mound), and you put the bread in a hole here (shoving motion about chin high), and the fire goes in here (walking around to the other "side" and motioning low). Vegetables and stuff go in here (back around to the "front", motioning to a lower hole). No doors. Yours is a lot nicer. You don't have to build a fire."

Over the next year and a half we had many strange conversations. They were always initiated by her, always in quiet moments, usually when we were alone, but occasionally when her father was nearby and could hear. (Thank goodness, a witness!)

During these conversations, she looked and sounded older. Her voice was lower. Her whole aspect changed. She moved differently, tighter, commented on things a child her age wouldn't normally notice, drew conclusions beyond her age. Sat quietly and conversed.

I also quickly learned that when the conversation was over, it was over. Once she wandered away, if I went to her and asked about something she had just said, she didn't know what I was talking about. It was like she had "spells" when she remembered Before-Mommy, but outside those spells, when the spell ended, Before-Mommy not only didn't exist, Daughter had no memory of having talked about her! I pushed a bit once, and she burst into tears because she thought I was telling her she was adopted. I learned to move very gently, to get as much information as I could at her pace, on every occasion offered, before the spell ended.

I also learned that I couldn't ask a "wild duck" question. I could probe deeper into whatever she was talking about, could ask questions about whatever her chosen topic was, but if I tried to go beyond that, the discussion was over. For example, I never found out what her name was, and that was driving me nuts. Still does. But the moment to ask never came.

The following is what she told me, in bits and pieces, usually kicked off by something we were doing, over the next year plus. It was completely consistent, and the details were always the same no matter from what direction they were approached.

She, her mother, her older brother, and "Old-Pa" lived in a house in the mountains. It was all mountainy. Pointy. Lots of big wide fields, all around. (There was apparently no father? When I asked about a father, she looked like she didn't understand.) "Old-Pa" (the grandfather, I suspect) couldn't walk. He sat in a chair with wheels. (Like a wheelchair, like in the hospital?) No, a chair like in the kitchen, but with wheels on the bottom. Brother put the wheels on it. Brother took care of their "little camels" in the fields. (Little camels? I finally figured out from her descriptions that they were probably alpacas. That's very interesting, because llamas, alpacas, and vicunas are in fact related to camels, and in this life she had been exposed only to camels, so that's the word she used?) Her mother wore a man's big hat, and big skirts, "not pants, like you".

When Old-Pa died, the three of them moved into town. Their "house" was one large room, and all the houses were attached around in a square. The oven (which some ten years later I discovered was a perfect description of a clay beehive oven) was in the middle of the room. There was a door and a window with shutters in front of the house, and a door in the back that opened to a courtyard that all the houses used. She had been allowed to keep two little camels when they left the mountain (because she cried for them), and they were kept in the courtyard during the day (but they could go in and out), and in the house at night. Water came from a well down the street. That was her job, to go get water. Her mother didn't wear the man's hat any more.

There was something about her having injured her leg, and she had to use "crunches" for a little while, but I don't remember. She had a doll her mother had made for her.

Their house was really pretty, because it had painted vines and flowers and all kinds of stuff on the outside, all around the doors and the window. Her brother lived with them for a little while, then he went away to go to school to be a doctor. He bought an old car so he could come visit them a lot, but the car spent most of its time "in the car hoppital", so it wasn't much good.

She: "And then I got sick and died."
Me: "Do you know what made you sick?"
She: "No. I couldn't breathe, I think."
Me: "How old were you then?"
She: "Twelve. My brother came home, but he couldn't fix me. Then I died."
Me: (Treading very carefully) "And then what happened?"
She: (Nonchalantly) "I went to the waiting place."
Me: "Waiting place? What's it like there?"
She: "Oh, you know (No! I don't!), just a waiting place." (Waving her hand dismissively.)
Me: "What were you waiting for?"
She "Time to get born."
Me: "How long did you wait?"
She: (Rolling eyes, silly mommy) "There's no clocks there! I just waited 'til it was time, then I came to you."
Me: "How did you know when it was time?"
She: (Frustrated) "Because it was time to get borned!"
Me: "Why me?"
She: (Super frustrated) "Because that's! when! it was time!"
Spell over.

That was our last Before conversation. She remembers absolutely none of it, any of it.

I believe every word of it.

I think that's why she was able to tell me, because I listened and accepted, and didn't turn her off or tell her she was silly the first time she said something outrageous. I suspect many children with old souls come through with memories, but there's a small window when they are able to talk about them, that short period between *when they have the words* and *when the before fades*. And if they are discouraged, if the right now reality is imposed and insisted upon, the window slams closed.
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