When Your Past Leaves No Trace

 

Childhood memories feel like blurry moments once lived. Photos, certificates, medals, and school reports usually prove those moments existed. I do not have that. My past has been erased. Adoption took the first part. Life took the second.

My life before ten months old was written by strangers in a file. No photos, no keepsakes, no stories. No one who remembered me. I grew up knowing I was chosen, although I also knew I had no beginning. My mum and dad became my start. Mum was the anchor. Dad was the contradiction. They gave me a childhood that felt full, although so much of it is now missing.

I have told my wife and children stories about my childhood and teens. I talk about ice skating competitions, karate gradings, Scout camps, Duke of Edinburgh awards, hang gliding, swimming badges, childhood adventures, cycling around Medway, learning instruments, art competitions, the day my artwork ended up in a Japanese museum, and my school and university experiences. I can describe every detail, picturing trophies, uniforms, certificates, and photos. None of it exists now. Not a single piece.

When we cleared Dad’s house after he died, we found a video from my fourth birthday and photos from before my teens. Everything after that was gone. Eleven to twenty one. A decade of life, achievements, and proof. Nothing survived. It felt strange at the time, although grief distracts you. You focus on the loss, not the moments buried in boxes that no longer exist. You simply work through the grieving process.

I have tried to make sense of it. Mum was the fighter. She pushed me to live a full life and refused to let disability define me. She made sure I kept going even when doctors said I would not. She was the one who pushed me to do everything. She was also practical, privately emotional, and protective. She may have removed the reminders of what I used to be able to do, not wanting to hurt me when I looked back. Maybe she could not face the contrast of what I was going through physically. She hated how skinny, skeletal, and ill I looked during my teens. Maybe she wanted to remove that version of me. This wouldn't have been a surprise. She's done it before. I had begged for a mountain bike for so long. I received it on my thirteenth birthday. Then my health kicked in. It stayed in the loft for a few months. Then vanished. Never seen again. Remove it, don't discuss it. Pretend it never happened. That was the way mum worked. However, I will never know why I have nothing now. She died fourteen years ago. The answers died with her.

Dad could not help. Dementia and Alzheimer’s took his memories long before he died. Life became harder when he was diagnosed with cancer and then the stroke. He couldn't recall anything. He was never the historian. Mum remembered the dates, events, and details. She held the timeline and the archive. In some cruel twist of fate, when she died, the archive died too.

This is why the missing decade hurts. It is not about trophies or certificates. It is about validation, knowing who you are, knowing your life happened the way you remember it. It is about having something to show your children. It is about having a past that exists outside your own head. 

My health journey adds another layer. I lived through misdiagnosis, fear, and the expectation that I would not reach adulthood. I kept going. I lived a full life. I pushed through everything. I fought because Mum taught me to fight. My body, abilities, and identity changed. The physical reminders of who I was would have shown that journey, the contrast between then and now, and the life I lived before FSHD took over.

What I have instead are memories, stories, and moments that shaped me. I have the life I lived, even if I cannot hold it in my hands. I feel the same ache I felt as an adopted child, where the proof existed before someone chose you. That still stings. 

I investigated my adoption. My birth dad was, and still is, a genuinely good and nice man. He’s someone the boys and I are glad to have in our lives. Nevertheless, life, forty‑three years on, has moved in its own direction. My birth mum was completely different. It didn’t matter how much I tried. She was complicated, immature, and at times openly unkind and nasty woman. There were lies, dismissal, ignorance, and petty, vindictive acts, all while hiding the truth and blaming everyone except herself. I never had a willing participant to answer those early years questions. She died in 2024. As with my adopted parents, the truth about me is lost, never to be found. There is no evidence my life happened the way I remember it.

I wish I could turn back time. Maybe I could have collected and saved everything I wanted. None of it felt relevant then. Like everyone else, I assumed my life was kept in tidy boxes in my parents’ loft, a hidden treasure to unearth later. I never expected to feel like my life had been erased.

My past leaves no trace. It leaves me as the one who has to write it down now.