This Is Memory
She was the fifth, and last, Grandchild of Dave and Rose Schmidt. I was the first and a boy, something Dave and Rose, having two daughters, had never experienced. I was the first Bris and the first Bar Mitzvah. I was, for the lack of a better term, the male heir. I was the one who taught them to duck when changing diapers. I was special, not because of who I was, but because of an accident of birth. I was simply first. Then came Deena, a couple of years later, the first Granddaughter. She was Allan and Sheila’s first child and to be honest, my memories of her first few years are nonexistent. Probably I was too young. What I know, I know from pictures. The two of us in a crib together or in the bathtub together. Us dressing up in winter clothes in the middle of summer just for the hell of it. She was my first cousin, literally, and that is a bond we have always had and always will. Next came my sister, Andrea. I remember the day she was born. I was nearly five yea