My First Memory

My first memory came to me as a dream. Can I still call it a memory? I’m not sure. My mother confirmed it was real. In the dream I'm sitting on a black and white checkerboard floor. I can not see my body, it is simply my point of view being displayed to me. I see a long streak of bright light and I feel eager warmth. When I started having this dream more than once I decided to tell my mother. She cried and talked about a house we lived in when I was just a year old. She told me stories of setting me on the laminate floor to prepare a bottle for me in the middle of the night. I watched her as she reminisced on how quiet I was, “never one to fuss” she said. My mother sighed and I watched her retreat into my dream, her memory. This is the first thing of my life that I remember, waiting to be fed on the black and white laminate checkerboard; bathed in fridge light. I can’t help but wonder…what makes a core memory?