When Clare was born, several people, after first seeing her, told me: She's an old soul. There was certainly something about her, the way she made eye contact, the way she met my gaze and held it.
When Clare was 27 months old, we were driving home from a short vacation in Ruidoso. The hum of the road had entranced her, and all was very quiet in the car. Then Steven & I hear from the back of the car, very clearly and without inflection, "I was married". Shortly after that, one day when Steven's parents were watching her, something happened and she got very upset - she was looking around at the floor as if in a trance, crying, and said something like, "They're all on the ground and they won't get up!". She became hysterical, sobbing. To my knowledge, memories of that period have never come up again. Steven's mom believes it was a holocaust memory.
Ever since she was able to talk, she has told us things about her "grandmother". Steven's mom is called "Bubbe", mine is "Grammie". This one is always referred to as "my grandmother". And these are always happy memories.
Once I put a tape in the VCR that didn't record well, and the picture was not great. I offered to get a different video, but Clare just said, "It's okay. This is how my grandmother watched her shows - with just sound".
A lot of the memories come when Clare is helping me in the kitchen. It seems like she must have spent a lot of time as a little girl in this grandmother's kitchen. There was another little girl her grandmother was raising too, though it's not clear if she was Clare's sister. Clare refers to her as Little Casa. I asked Clare how she came to be raised by her grandmother, and she said, 'When you & Steven went away my grandmother came and got me'. So, it seems we have been together before!
When Clare was 27 months old, we were driving home from a short vacation in Ruidoso. The hum of the road had entranced her, and all was very quiet in the car. Then Steven & I hear from the back of the car, very clearly and without inflection, "I was married". Shortly after that, one day when Steven's parents were watching her, something happened and she got very upset - she was looking around at the floor as if in a trance, crying, and said something like, "They're all on the ground and they won't get up!". She became hysterical, sobbing. To my knowledge, memories of that period have never come up again. Steven's mom believes it was a holocaust memory.
Ever since she was able to talk, she has told us things about her "grandmother". Steven's mom is called "Bubbe", mine is "Grammie". This one is always referred to as "my grandmother". And these are always happy memories.
Once I put a tape in the VCR that didn't record well, and the picture was not great. I offered to get a different video, but Clare just said, "It's okay. This is how my grandmother watched her shows - with just sound".
A lot of the memories come when Clare is helping me in the kitchen. It seems like she must have spent a lot of time as a little girl in this grandmother's kitchen. There was another little girl her grandmother was raising too, though it's not clear if she was Clare's sister. Clare refers to her as Little Casa. I asked Clare how she came to be raised by her grandmother, and she said, 'When you & Steven went away my grandmother came and got me'. So, it seems we have been together before!
