Blue Heron Visions: Chapter 12: What's in a Name?

This manuscript is both a memoir of sorts and a work of fiction. The stories and events included are based on my life experiences and memories but I have changed names, details, event sequences, and outcomes throughout the work.

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Chapter 12: What's in a Name?

Elizabeth's walk went pretty well despite the depth of the snow. The air was crisp and it felt refreshing somehow to have that cold air fill her lungs. She enjoyed walking outside in the snow because it always gave her time for contemplation. On this walk she thought about how her fears and worries were like little yappy dogs, nipping at her heels as she journeyed along life's path. She did not understand why she couldn't shake these annoying habits. She considered her name, thinking of Queen Elizabeth I whose presence, leadership, and action had defeated the Spanish and brought England a sense of national identity. Under her reign, English drama bloomed and prospered as did the exploits of English sea adventurers. Elizabeth wondered if the queen had ever allowed her fears and worries to dominate her to the extent that she felt paralyzed in her personal life. Where did a woman like the first Queen Elizabeth find the courage to face and overcome the obstacles in her life?

Elizabeth felt that she had never grown into her name. Her name seemed to have many different meanings depending on which dictionary of names one used. Elizabeth could mean "My God is a vow," "Consecrated to God," and Elizabeth's favorite "God is satisfaction." Although Elizabeth most identified with this meaning, she didn't see it evidenced in her life, at least not yet. Just thinking about the role that fear and worry played in her life negated the idea that knowing and believing in God brought any satisfaction in her life! She felt a little nudge as she formulated that last thought. Perhaps her name was actually an answer to some of the questions she was always asking.

Her thoughts turned to an early experience related to her name, a story that her mother had often recounted that showed that Elizabeth's baby sister had some confusion about Elizabeth's name. The story was one that everyone found humorous. But there was a subtle significance that always affected Elizabeth, one that she believed may have colored her perception of herself. Her mother, too, felt mortified by the story because it didn't put her in such a good light as a nurturer of children.

The story took place when Elizabeth was about six years old. As a child, Elizabeth was quite precocious, often getting into mischief. Her mother expressed annoyance with her many misbehaviors by saying, "Damn it, Elizabeth, don't do that!" or "Damn it, Elizabeth, come here!" One habit that her mother found particularly irritating was when Elizabeth wandered away from her when they were in the store. On this particular day, Elizabeth, her mother, and her little sister had gone to a local drugstore. Her sister was in the shopping cart, and Elizabeth was supposed to be walking right next to the cart. But being the adventurous and independent child she was, Elizabeth had wandered off. Her mother was informed of her disappearance when a little voice coming from her shopping cart piped up asking loudly, "Where's Damn It, Mommy? Where's Damn It?" Elizabeth's extremely embarrassed mother quickly found Elizabeth, gathered up her sister, and immediately left the store, errands forgotten in the mortifying moment.

Of course, the story brought smiles. How could it not? But the story also showed that Elizabeth's mother used the phrase "damn it" attached to her name so often that her little sister had confused the expletive with her name! Although Elizabeth had no memory of the events or of her mother repeating "damn it," the story always struck a discordant chord in her heart. How does it affect a child's psyche and self-image when someone who loves them consistently uses an expletive as an adjective to her name? Not that Elizabeth blamed her mother for her own insecurities. She had grown up enough, especially after raising her own children, to know that passing judgment on her parents accomplished nothing, simply shifting her focus from what she could do now to a past that no longer existed. She did wonder why she still felt that twinge in her heart though. Obviously some part of her was holding onto the hurt, using it to prove that she really was less than.

As Elizabeth reflected back to her school years, she hadn't cared much for her name. People would often shorten it to Liz or Beth, both fine names but neither was her name. In Elizabeth's mind, only her mother was allowed to call her Beth. Anyone else who called her by a nickname did her a disservice because they were diminishing who she was. She had a strong identity with her name, that it reflected (or was supposed to reflect) who she was or at least whom she was growing into. She had always embraced the idea that names were significant and that their meanings were important.

Elizabeth also remembered that there were times that she seemed to not recognize her name. Sometimes, her mother would call her or address her directly and would actually use a different name to get her attention. The name her mother chose was the name of another famous queen of England, Victoria. When Elizabeth wasn't listening or ignoring her mother's call, she would hear someone calling, "Victoria! Victoria!" Elizabeth would immediately look at her mom or respond to her call.

Elizabeth recalled another time when she actually changed her name. At the age of eight, Elizabeth decided she didn't want to live at her home any longer. She wanted to move across the street and live with her friend Christopher's family. Chris was two years younger than Elizabeth and had two older brothers and an older sister. Elizabeth thought she would like his family better, so she informed Chris's mother of her decision. Since she was going to a new family, Elizabeth decided her name should be Mary Jane. Chris's mother and her mother allowed her to carry on with her plans until dinner time that day, at which point Mary Jane disappeared back into Elizabeth's imagination, simply a childhood memory.

One of Elizabeth's fondest memories related to her name happened when she was six-months pregnant with her first child. The church she attended was preparing for their annual Christmas pageant. This year the choir director was going to have a multimedia production that would include a movie with scenes leading up to and including the birth of Christ. The pastor's 16-year-old daughter was playing the part of the Virgin Mary. Elizabeth was asked to play John the Baptist's mother, Elizabeth. How appropriate! There were no speaking roles since there would be Bible readings and choir songs that related to the different scenes presented. All Elizabeth was required to do was be pregnant and look radiant when greeting Mary. The fact that her name was the same as her character's was just an added bonus. Elizabeth smiled at the memory.

Elizabeth knew that Vincent appreciated her name. He felt the name suited her well, and he had written poems in which he used her name in creative ways. He thought her name was romantic and that their two names together formed the perfect couple in a beautiful love story. He had never used the abbreviated versions of her name and she loved that about him.

"So what was the importance of a person's name?" Elizabeth wondered. In the past, names were based on family tradition. In Italian families, the first-born son was often named after the father's father and the second-born after the mother's father. A tradition that had been followed in Elizabeth's father's generation. Many of her father's Italian first-born male cousins were named Dominic (after her paternal great-grandfather) which, Elizabeth thought, made for a lot of confusion during family reunions. In the case of her generation, most parents took time choosing their child's name, consulting naming books or the Internet to get just the perfect name for their new baby.

Elizabeth's name had been chosen by her mother and was the middle name of her mother's best friend in high school. Elizabeth had never known this woman and couldn't remember any stories her mother had told about her friend, other than her mother had been in a car accident with her friend. That car accident resulted in her mother being thrown through the window and narrowly escaping death. She had lost her hearing because of the head trauma she had suffered. The other story Elizabeth recalled was about the two young women leaving their home town after graduating high school. They had gotten jobs as telephone operators in the state's capital. While there, her mother had suffered severe appendicitis and had had to have her appendix out, making it necessary for her to return home. Both of these stories focused more on her mother than on her mother's friend, Arlene Elizabeth.

So what was in a name? Was there really a reason why each of us was given a specific name in this life other than for a way to differentiate between that person and this one? Elizabeth believed that everyone was eternal, which meant that a name simply provided a location at a certain point in space and time. She also knew that names reinforced the idea of separation between people. She had a sense of the Oneness of Life, though. So she also played with the idea that wherever a person found himself or herself in space and time, the world that surrounded them was of his or her own creation. Whatever was seen, felt, or experienced illustrated and reflected the person and facets of the person's personality. Of course, that would extend to a person's name. She had already considered the relationship between herself and one definition of her name. She would like "God is satisfaction" to be reflected in her world, but she wasn't sure how to go about achieving that.

Elizabeth sighed as she realized that she had come to another question to be answered. "Does magic have anything to do with questions or answers?" she wondered. She noticed that the sun was swiftly sinking below the horizon, and she turned toward home to get ready for Vincent's arrival and the evening ahead.