Memories

"The average person barely knows ten stories from childhood and those are based more on photographs and retellings than memory." I read this line in a book recently and it got me thinking about what my stories from childhood are. Sad to say, the ones that come to mind the clearest and the quickest are the sad/bad memories. I remember the awful, ugly fights my parents had right before they ended their marriage. I remember my then single mother cooking with grease one night and it catching fire. She was taken to the hospital and just out of 8th grade, I was in charge of my three little brothers for a long time. I remember starting my period during her hospital stay and having no one to talk about it. Maybe I don't have many childhood memories because I had a shorter than normal childhood. Circumstances demanded that I leap into adulthood, ready or not, in so many ways.
I think this is why I try so hard to have silly fun with my grand children. I hope a few of our escapades will become some of their childhood memories. I want for them what I did not have. Don't most parents and grand parents want this? We cannot rewrite history, but maybe we can create a future that has more smiles than tears, more fun than failures. I, for one, will never stop believing it's possible.