This is the story of the prom nobody remembers. Literally.

All I know is who I went with and what I wore. Jeff, the boy I had been dating since New Year’s Eve of senior year, was a sophomore at Rutgers, but came home every weekend to see me. So when I asked him to escort me to my prom, of course he said yes. The Featured Image is the only photo I have of the two of us. We were more dressed up than usual (although obviously not at prom level), so I’m guessing we were on our way to see a Broadway show. That was back when people dressed up to go to the theatre.

I still have the dress I wore, although unfortunately it no longer fits me, so here it is on a hanger. There is also a picture of me wearing the dress several years later here. When I offered it to my daughter Molly to wear to her prom she just laughed a lot. It was either too retro or not retro enough, I’m not sure which.

Since I couldn’t remember anything about the actual event, I wrote to my classmates to elicit their memories. They were a useful resource two years ago when I wrote a story about our graduation, which everyone remembered vividly. There were a total of twenty-four in my class by senior year (down from thirty-one originally), and two people have died. I asked the remaining twenty-one classmates to tell me what they remembered. Only five people responded.

Joan: “I think I remember my dress. Nothing else.”
Robin: “ZERO memory of a prom. Really. Maybe it was canceled? Or just super boring?”
Amy: “I only remember hair spray and up-dos. Sad.”
Bruce: “I have a pretty clear memory of where the prom was held, I simply can’t recall the name.” After poking around on the internet he concluded it was at a place called the Robin Hood Inn. I wrote back saying “that doesn’t jog my memory, but I’m sure you’re right,” to which he responded “I am far from sure that I am right.”
Stoney: “The main takeaway here may be the state of our memories.”
Kathy provided the last word: “Perhaps your story should be that no one can remember the event despite remembering every other detail of those six years — including details of novels read, teachers’ pet expressions, and what we made in Home Ec class. I have no memory of the event other than driving down Valley Road [where the Robin Hood was]. I hate to think that was the highlight of the evening.”

• * * * * *

My children’s proms I remember well.

Ben was in his high school band all four years, and that was pretty much his social group. When it came time for prom, he was told by his bandmates to ask a certain girl, who was also in the band, and she was told to say yes, so it was all very low stress. The group who had instigated this rented an enormous stretch limousine, and eight or ten couples piled in and went off to prom together.

For Molly’s prom, she went with another girl, who was also named Molly and lived around the corner from us. They were not a lesbian couple, just good friends, but decided to go together because you shouldn’t have to wait for a boy to ask you! That seemed like a HUGE improvement over the old days, when a girl couldn’t go unless a boy took her, although it probably meant that they didn’t dance any of the slow dances. Here’s one of my favorite prom-related pictures, Molly getting ready for the prom.

Molly also went to two proms given by her online high school, which were held in Ventura. The first year we drove down there specially for the prom. The second year it was in conjunction with her graduation. It was right in the hotel where we were staying, which made it easy. She attended alone, but most of the other kids were there alone too, since it was an online school and this was the only time they met face-to-face. They all had a good time dancing together in groups. From what I saw, most of the dancing consisted of jumping up and down. That seemed to work just fine.

Sabrina never went to her prom, and I don’t know if she was sad about it, or if she considered herself beyond all that. It has been fifteen years since she was in high school, so I’m not inclined to ask her now.

• * * * * *

It’s funny how my prom, an event that seemed so incredibly important to me at the time, has not left a trace behind. There is probably a lesson to be learned from that. Still, I can’t help wishing I could retrieve those memories.

In my early twenties I had absolutely no interest in babies. I didn’t find them cute, or interesting, or cuddly. When friends or classmates were showing off their babies, I would of course say Oh your baby is so adorable, but I actually thought they were ugly and noisy and smelly. I certainly didn’t want to have one of my own.

Then in 1977 my sister had a baby. I was still not all that excited, until I went to visit. When I saw my little niece, by then about four months old, for the first time, I had such an overwhelming feeling of love, like nothing I had ever felt before. This baby was so beautiful, and I was ready to do anything for her.

So at age 26, I decided that having a baby was an appealing idea, assuming I could find the right person to do it with. That was an obstacle for quite a while. I had women friends who went the sperm bank route, or the get-pregnant-on-purpose-and-don’t-tell-the-guy route, but I didn’t think I wanted to do it that way. When I was 29, I met someone who wanted children too, and two years later we got married, and two years after that (and after one miscarriage), we had a baby.

She was two weeks late to be born, and had grown very large — 9 pounds, 8 1/2 ounces, as it turned out. I was in labor for many, many hours, and they kept lying to me, saying the baby was coming, just a few more contractions. . . . Finally the doctor said the baby isn’t coming out, and I recommend having a Cesarian, but I know this is a big decision so I will give you some time to think about it. As he started to walk out, I grabbed my husband’s arm and said Don’t let him leave. Let’s do it RIGHT NOW! So they gave me something that made my midsection completely numb, and that was the most wonderful feeling (or lack of feeling) I think I have ever experienced!

Sabrina was a joy. I was so in love with her from the moment she was born. Everything was new with her, and I was fascinated by each milestone she reached. She started talking early, and had such interesting things to say. She had a puzzle of the United States, and she learned the name and shape of each state. She seemed like a baby genius! I nursed her until she was three years old, when she lost interest and weaned herself. I was pregnant again by then, and apparently pregnancy makes the milk taste different. Here she is, in a swing at a neighbor’s house, just shy of two years old.

I wondered if I could love a second child as much as I loved her. It seemed impossible. And yet when Ben was born, I felt that same overwhelming sense of love and connection as I had with Sabrina. He was a scheduled Cesarian, so we just showed up at the hospital at the appointed time with a suitcase, like checking into a hotel. Easy peasy. He was a little more challenging than Sabrina, but that was due, at least in part, to there being two of them, both wanting attention at the same time. I nursed him until the age of three also, but the third year was a little problematic, because my husband and I split up a couple of months after his second birthday, and then he was spending weekends with his father. Here he is, also just shy of two, wearing the t-shirt of his future alma mater.

I had my third child, Molly, when the other two were eleven and eight. I had to be talked into having another one, because I was already over forty and much less energetic than I had been in my thirties. Also, it turns out that it’s much harder to get pregnant in your forties, probably because nature thinks you are supposed to be done with that sort of thing by then. I went through fertility treatments, but only ended up getting pregnant after I had stopped the treatments and given up trying. Ironic. She was also a scheduled Cesarian, so off to the hospital with my little suitcase, someone else took the kids to school where they proudly told their teachers that their mother was having a baby that day. When school was over, they came to the hospital to see Molly and me, and we have Polaroid pictures of each of them holding her. They thought she was the best new toy we could have gotten them! Here she is at eighteen months.

Each child has been a joy and a challenge, in wholly different ways. I kept thinking that I was learning from my mistakes, and that I was getting wiser with experience. Turns out that what works with one child will almost certainly not be right with another. They have grown up into three such different people, it’s hard to believe that they are products of (mostly) the same heredity and environment. They are all wonderful, and I am very glad I had them. I cannot imagine my life without them, so I am thankful that my sister’s baby convinced me all those years ago that having children was something I wanted to do.

In the eternal “nature vs nurture” debate, I can assure you that both play a big factor in how one’s child turns out, but babies are born with certain traits that cannot be denied.

David was born 10 days after his due date; I labored for 37 1/2 uncomfortable hours and he was whisked off to the neo-natal ICU, with jaundice and a fever (he was fine within a few hours). I joke that he has been slow and deliberate ever since, could sleep through anything (we used to vacuum under his crib and it didn’t wake him) and is habitually late. He is naturally reticent, was very shy as a youngster and worked hard to bring out a more sociable personality.

Jeffrey was delivered on his due date in 45 minutes and has been running around since (not so speedy any longer). Cracking my knuckles used to wake his SO active brain and he was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 5. He was a smiley baby, but at an early age showed great frustration and could throw a temper tantrum that would melt your face off.

New-born Jeffrey

I love both my children dearly. They are brilliant and sweet. They have many interests in common, but are so different in so many ways, yet they both have the same parents and were raised in the same household.

I nursed each of them a year. I did a lot of research and believed it was the healthiest course to take, if I was able. Babies are so soft and smell wonderful (most of the time). Holding them as long as it took to make sure they were properly nourished was an intense experience. David looks the most like me and nothing could quite describe how I felt as I nursed, feeling that my eyes gazed up at me. Occasionally I would have to play “mean Mommy” and flick their toes to wake them to get them to continue to nurse, ensuring adequate nutrition. Even then, Jeffrey was easily distracted and would look around, rather than concentrating on the task at hand!

Watching them hit their milestones was another amazing task that certainly happens within ranges, but was different for each child. Turning over, holding up the head, holding up the body, scooting, crawling, taking those first tentative steps, those first words, solid food. Then of course, babies no more, but full-fledged toddlers. Jeffrey was slow to walk, but crawled so quickly that we called him “turbo-charged”. No need to walk…he got around just fine, thank you very much.

Infant diseases are terrifying, particularly for new parents. When the babies start teething and crying from pain, we didn’t know what was going on and they’d start wailing, we just wanted to give them Tylenol all the time. I didn’t have any parents or other adults around to help or give sage advise and I couldn’t call the doctor for everything. David had colic and the cramps caused him to wail. His doctor did prescribe something, which soothed him

Poor little Jeffrey contracted meningitis at 11 weeks, brought home by David from day camp. David had a high fever, head ache and stiff neck, but he was four years old and the doctor said he’d be fine. Jeffrey hadn’t had his first shots yet. His fever spiked to 104 degrees. His doctor watched him for several days, assuming she knew what it was, but couldn’t be sure if it was viral (OK – it would pass) or bacterial (very dangerous; needed to be on IV antibiotics STAT!). The fever ebbed and flowed. When it spiked again, she sent me to Children’s Hospital for a spinal tap (and we called Dan home from out of town). I sat on the floor of the hospital, listening to my baby scream, as I cried too.

The nurse brought him back to me with an IV of antibiotics in his tiny arm (to be safe, while they waited for the culture to come back). She put me in an isolated room, without offering me food or water. She said they’d get me a room on the isolation ward when one became available. I asked what was going on. She said if it was viral, he’d be fine, if it was bacterial, there could be consequences like blindness, deafness or death! With that, she left me alone. For hours. At one point, our doctor called on a line in the hallway (this was 1989, long before cell phones). She said she knew he’d be fine and to hang in there, she’d visit later in the day. Eventually, we got up on the ward. A chair in the room could be made into a bed for me, as I could not leave my nursing baby. Dan came later with David. They had gotten McDonald’s. David thought that was a real treat.

Except when Jeffrey slept, I held him round the clock, close to my chest, for two days. I sang to him constantly. I showered when the nurse came to draw blood from his heel. I couldn’t stand to hear that cry. In later years, before I understood all his sensory integration issues, some of which led him to find my high-pitched singing voice intolerable, I joked: because I had sung to him for those two horrible days, he subconsciously couldn’t stand my singing because it reminded him of his hospital stay.

After 48 hours, his cultures came back. The meningitis was viral, not bacterial and he was released from the hospital. He would be fine. But in all the years since, as we went from doctor to doctor, searching for a diagnosis for Jeffrey’s behavioral, learning and other differences, I always began the conversation with that infant illness, wondering if there was any lasting effect. The doctors always assured me that was not the case.  But I always wondered.