Write Your Memories Before It’s Too Late
A Year Remembered in Bellybutton, Arizona
Many of us saw “Loretta,” the emotional Super Bowl commercial from Google this past weekend, and if you’re like me, it touched you. I’ve included the video below. When we lose people we love, it’s an ongoing and complex loss. Not only do we miss those people in the present, but we also lose a bit of our own past and shared memories. When the shared-memory holders of our personal history are gone, we only have one-sided reminiscing left. I find there are a lot of empty spots in my own memories, like the man in the Loretta commercial. And the older I get, the more people I loved are no longer here to help relive those moments.
Only a year ago, I lost my oldest brother, Walt. I’ve written about that grief previously — grief that still sneaks up and smacks me in the face on occasion. I miss him deeply. When I was writing this article, I was hit again with this loss, trying to remember the details. I could recall some parts clearly, but others were vague. I’m almost certain, Walt would have remembered some of those details I was missing. But he’s gone now and I only have my own version and that of my remaining siblings to perpetuate our childhood.
Others in my past are gone now, too. My mom, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even some childhood friends. It occurred to me how important it is to chronicle our lives, to write about the shared times before more memories slip away. It’s a way of holding a piece of those people we love. I want to hold onto a time that was idyllic by writing this article. It was idyllic because of the people I shared it with. It happened in a place called, Bellybutton.
Bellybutton, Arizona, 1969
When I was four I lived in Bellybutton, Arizona. Yes, that’s a real place. Google it! It wasn’t called Bellybutton when we moved there in 1969, it was simply the valley between Snowflake and Taylor, a speck on the map, but it has come to be known as Bellybutton, officially, in recent years. My family moved there from the Phoenix area. I was born on Luke Air Force Base, which makes me an Air Force Brat and is why we moved to Bellybutton in the first place.
My father, a career US Air Force man, was given Temporary Duty Assignment, or TDY, in Korea for 13 months, leaving his wife and 5 children to fend for themselves in Arizona while he was gone. It was decided that the best thing to do would be to move to my grandparent's farm in Bellybutton and set up shop in a trailer for the 13 months he would be away. Six people in an airstream-type trailer for 13 months. What could go wrong? Absolutely nothing.
A Four-Year-Old’s Paradise
Bellybutton has become synonymous in my mind with Disneyland and Wonderland. It was the perfect place for a 4-year-old to be and so different from where I was and where I’ve been ever since, although I have lived in many places in the world. There were horses and chickens to feed, crops to irrigate. There was a cow to be milked and fresh milk to drink. There were grasshoppers to catch on the way to the creek where we would fish all day with our sticks and strings. There were plays to be acted out on the log that reached across the creek and of course, lots of falling in.
My grandparents bought a house and moved it to the same property shortly after we arrived. I remember them laying a foundation and bringing the house in on a semi-truck. There were bricks and cinder-blocks all over the place. The house came to rest about 200 yards from our trailer. Having my grandparents live that close to us for a year was part of the reason it was such a magical place and time for me.
Some of My Memories
Shortly after the house was settled, I was running at night to my grandparent's house at full tilt. I’m not sure I knew any other speed at that age. On the way, I tripped on an unseen brick, landed on another brick with my chin, and bit right through my tongue. I got up and ran on to grandma’s house with blood streaming out of my mouth. I learned from then on to not run so fast. Which lasted until my tongue healed at least.
Another memory I have is running to my grandparent’s house, opening the front screen door, running in, and letting the door slam behind me. It had one of those springs attached at the top and it slammed quite loudly. Grandpa yelled out, “Matthew, we told you not to come in the house without knocking first!” I quickly ran out the door, let it close, knocked on the door, and ran in again without waiting for them to say anything, letting the door slam once again behind me. They just smiled and shook their heads.
Grandpa had one of those faces that felt like sandpaper when he hugged you. He loved to put us on his knee and bury his face in our necks and we would scream and laugh and ask him to do it again. He always smelled like a mesquite wood fireplace, which was a wonderful thing. We were often sitting on his lap next to the wood-burning stove.
Grandma was the 3rd-grade teacher at Snowflake Elementary and Grandpa was the janitor. My siblings all attended school there, including Debi who was in Grandma’s class. After starting kindergarten there I saw Grandpa walking toward me and I yelled out, “Grandpa!” He had a huge smile on his face as he picked me up in one of his patented bear hugs and put me back down. Many of my classmates had been standing around when this happened and from then on he was called Grandpa by most of the kids at school.
Being a kid in an idyllic place like Bellybutton was not without its hazards. The creek flooded every year and one could easily fall in and get pulled under. There were ditches to fall into and rattlesnakes in this high desert area. My brother Walt once ran right through a large cactus bush as he ran downhill a little too fast. We were picking out needles for days.
But there was something I had been wanting to do that was dangerous. I was able to avoid most of the pitfalls described above, but there was something I hadn’t done yet in all my 5 years of living.
Taking A Ride On Tripper
There were two horses on the farm in Bellybutton. Tripper was the stallion, a large gray horse, and a buckskin mare named Goldie. Tripper was probably only six inches taller than Goldie, but he seemed like a giant to me. And believe it or not, I was a fearless horseman at age 4. I would always ride Goldie with a switch because she wouldn’t go fast enough for me. My legs were too small to kick her hard enough to keep her going. I would use a switch to remind her who was running this show and to keep up with Tripper. For some reason, however, I was afraid of Tripper. He terrified me, but I felt the need to ride that horse, come heck or high water!
I recently spoke with my sister, Debi, about Tripper. She’s four years older than me. She said she was also terrified of Tripper, so maybe I picked up that fear from her. Have you ever gone to do something and thought, “what was I thinking?” only by then it’s too late?
As an adult, I once went to an amusement park with some family members and everybody wanted to go on this ride that takes you straight up and drops you straight down. I don't know how I forgot that I was afraid of heights until I got to the top of the ride, but I swore I would never do that again. And I haven’t. But back to Bellybutton.
It was a bright sunny day, I can still see it in my mind. There was some kind of barbeque going on and everybody was enjoying the day. My oldest brother, Walt, was around the same age as my grandparents’ youngest sons, so there was always something going on between her two boys and my brother and sisters. Nobody noticed as I slipped away from the activities and started walking out into the far end of the field where Tripper and Goldie stayed most of the time.
Being a 5-year old’s memories, some of this is a little fuzzy to me. I remember being up on Tripper, bareback, but I can’t remember how I actually got there. According to my siblings, I “reached up and grabbed Tripper’s mane and shimmied up his front leg and onto his back.”
That’s when the terror set in. Once I was actually on Tripper’s back, I didn’t know what to do, but I started hearing the screams from my family about getting off of him immediately. I was glued on, squeezing my legs and holding onto his mane, and I couldn’t budge. I suppose I was also being a bit stubborn, rejecting their commands, and holding on tight. It was then that one of them came out and tried to get me down off the horse, but I wasn’t having any of that.
I kicked Tripper in the sides and he took off at a full gallop, running toward the family and the barbed-wire fence that separated us from them. It was a good 100 yards away, allowing Tripper to get up to full speed. I could do nothing to slow him down. All the time my family continued screaming at me to slow down. I saw myself riding into the fence and being thrown from Tripper’s back, but somehow Tripper knew just when to stop and he came up short, just grazing his neck on the barbs.
Only then, once I had had my ride of terror, was I ready to get down off of Tripper and I quickly did so. I never rode him again. I had accomplished my unspoken goal, conquered my unspoken fear. I had ridden the stallion and lived to see another day.
Shortly after this time, my dad came home from Korea and announced that he had a new assignment and we would all be going with him to England. England! This is really where my wanderlust began in earnest, but that’s probably best left for another story.
I’ll never forget the 13 months I lived in Bellybutton and Snowflake. It was the most magical year of my life. I’ve had plenty of other years that have been fantastic, but none of them have had quite the same flavor as this one. I will savor it for the rest of my life. As I was trying to remember the details of this story, I reached out to my older siblings, which is when I realized my brother Walt wasn’t there to share what he remembered of the events. The grief overwhelmed me in that moment, even though my sisters helped me piece some of it together.
If you have stories that you want to remember, take the time to write them down, and if you can’t remember the details, reach out to others who might have been there during that time. Use their shared memories with yours to paint the complete picture, before it’s too late and they aren’t there to help you anymore.
The following piece is something I wrote shortly after my brother’s death, including a poem I wrote about my grief.
