Past Lives and Pre Lives

There's a bunch of examples in the literature of unexplained phenomena, if you believe or are interested in reading that sort of thing, where young children talk about past lives or whatever.

Obviously, much of this can be explained away by the mental explorations and creativity that can arise from young children who are extremely imaginative and have an above-average inquisitive brain.

These "memories," false or otherwise, dissipate and are forgotten usually by the time they reach school age, but when they're present they can be interesting if not a tad disconcerting if you think too much about the possible ramifications of such thought.

When I was teaching I had a five-year-old who one day nonchalantly told me one day about the time before he was born when he lived on an estate in southern Australia and had a chauffeur named Roger who drove a Bentley. It was a real specific story, with meals that were eaten and activities undertaken “during the war.” It was odd, and out of character for this boy who had previously acted and talked like an average five-year-old boy. When I asked him later in the year more questions about his Australian life he didn’t know what I was talking about.

Evidently Wes exhibited something similar to Adri, though he never said anything about it to me, and when I asked him several weeks later he also no longer had any memory of what he had said.

Here’s the text from Adri:

12/13/2020 8:09:49 PM

Wes said, “Mom, remember when you were three years old and me and Bryce came to visit, and we found the correct house and knocked, and your mom said no, they are strangers, and I told her no because it was us?”

I’m tired and want them asleep, but the night time talks are the best.

And it reminds me of your talks about how you wondered where I was before I was born while you were a kid.

Ask Wesley about that story. It hasn’t changed. He told me, then he told Stephen, then I asked him tell me again.

I believe him. Those are his exact words.

...

Which provides the segue to the notion of “pre lives” for lack of a better phrase that Adri mentions in that text, that I used to miss Adri retroactively when I’d think about the time before she was born. Which I realize sounds absolutely bonkers, but have you met me?

I have a pretty good memory of my childhood, going back to when I was still in a crib to about college time, at which point my memories all get clouded and jumbled together. But my early life: clear as day.

However, when I think back to, say, first grade, when I was building a "King Kong" plastic Aurora model, or when I remember when I was four or so learning to ride a two-wheeler for the first time (begging my mom for what seemed weeks to take the training wheels off the purple Schwinn I had), or the time I hit my only home run in little league... I suddenly realize that my daughter's not there.

Where the hell is she? Here I was, living my life, as happy as a clam, yet my daughter wasn't alive. How could I have been happy without her? Why didn't I "miss" her? I certainly "miss" her in my memories. This is what I mean about "retroactively" missing someone.

I go through an old family photo album and find a group picture of our family. Everyone's there... with the exception of my daughter. Yet we're all smiling, totally oblivious to the fact that someone is missing.

I know, intellectually, that this is normal. Of course my daughter isn't there; she hasn't been born yet. There was no one to miss back then. But what the hell does that mean? Where are we before we're born? It doesn't bother me so much wondering where I was before I was born, for I take it as a given that I simply wasn't (though, to be fair, it did bother me a great deal when I was younger.)  But my daughter? That's another story.

People miss people when they die, of course, and some wonder where they are, if indeed consciousness can survive death. What I experienced was the exact reverse of this: missing someone before they were born, and wondering where they were before their birthdate.

Naturally, this was something Adri and I talked about when we had our long talks, whether on a road trip to Chicago, while brushing her hair before bed, or lounging at the pool in the summer. She at first had brought up similar thoughts and notions about the nature of existence, so I shared some of mine.

It’s indicative of our relationship and bond, that while, sure, we talked about bunnies and Barbies, we also talked about the nature of the universe. We talked about everything, she shared everything, she held nothing back. And I realized when she sent me that text that these conversations must have been important and impactful to her as well, that they stuck with her.

And now, of course, I’m living in the worst possible moment, where I have to miss her in the past, the present, and have a future ahead of me stretching out where I’ll miss her as well.  I missed her before she was born and after she died, and got so little time with her during the insanely short slice of the timeline that she inhabited with me.

If time is a river, the rushing waters are much to swift and unrelenting, its source obscured and unknowable and its endpoint unreachable.