What’s your earliest memory? Think about it hard. Mine is a surreal image of me in a crib. I remember being distressed about something, and one of my parents coming to the crib, turning on a night light and comforting me. It’s strange. I can picture the events in my memory, but it’s hard to determine if that is truly my “earliest memory”, or some sort of dream, or a mix of the two. I may never know.
As I write this, I am watching my first day on earth via VHS video tape. “Seven pounds, three ounces.” The nurse says as she hands my flailing infant self over to my father, who has a full head of hair and looks like a mix of my current self, and my elder brother.
My dad then hands me off to my mother as she holds her third child for the first time. The camera sits idle on a tri-pod exposing every gritty detail of my birth. The cutting of my umbilical cord, my ripened testicles, my puffy red eyelids unable to open, the sound of my strained cries, all captured on this small piece of videotape. My dad continues to shoot photo after photo, as he will throughout the rest of my life. My mother says “hello” to her newest child for the first time…as I sneeze into her face. The camera cuts to a handheld shot. The camera puts into frame my infant self, and my mother holding me, when my father asks “and our son’s name is what?”, “Travis” my mother says. My post-fetal self is now wrapped in a cool blanket. I look like some sort of spawn of E.T. the extra terrestrial. My mother refers to me as “such a cutie”, as she will continue to do so well into my high school years. After a few minutes in the world, I discover the joys of sucking on my thumb, similar oral fixations will continue to present day. Family then shows up. My sister looks on in curiosity and appears anxious to comfort and entertain me. My older brother Brandon begins doing math to determine how old he will be when I am twelve years old, meanwhile asking question after question and my grandfather patiently answers each one of them. The footage then turns fuzzy, and the video continues on through my first year of life on this world.
Watching this tape reveals some sort of weird foreshadowing for all of those people in it. Take my brother Brandon for example: even at six years old, I see him quantifying and crunching numbers, and he begins to determine and calculate his own future. Today, my brother is one of the most calm and calculated planners that I know. I always go to him for advice and perspective, knowing that he can see what I cannot. My sister as well, she can be seen in this video comforting me, unwilling to give me up, while looking at me with confidence and hope that no one else in the world sees.
The actions taken in the past, so easily reflect that of the present. That being said, the footage on this tape that best reflects the present is my own beginning. Watching myself emerge, (from a tasteful vantage point) it almost seems to set the tone to who I am now. I came out scared, cold, and afraid. No direction, no life support, fearing every bit of change within my tiny little world. The only thing I had was a family to hold me, comfort me, feed me, and enable me to grow.
I must admit that it’s difficult seeing a pure version of myself. It’s hard to look at such fragility and purity, and see it displaced with pride, insecurity, and selfishness. However, seeing this once pure “me” also gives me hope, because I know that some day I will be redeemed back into a similar fragile and pure being when Christ returns to redeem this world.
