Tell Me My Name

If the unborn could talk

The weeks passed and I had been on edge. It was not necessarily worry that debilitated, it was the energy of it all, sapping my own, fraying my sensibilities. There was an anxiousness that prevailed and soothing was complicated.

On a morning when I had not expected it, I saw it. Of course, I had known for weeks, but few others had. It was a post on Instagram, the modern way to inform. The first was from my son and then another from my daughter-in-law. A baby was coming and they were telling the world.

I sat at my desk and read both posts over and over, not because I could not believe it, of course, but rather that it was now so real. And it was then that my edginess softened. There was comfort is the sharing.

A few weeks before, my son had asked what I would like my grandchild to call me. I had not considered such things until asked. Thinking for a moment, I said, “Anything but grandfather.” The word grandfather sounded old. “How about Pappy?” my son asked. Pappy had been what my two sons had called my father. Not sure where the name came from; it simply evolved. My answer was swift. “No, I don’t think so. There was only one Pappy.” My son asked me to think about a name, and I have, but it seemed then as it does now to be a selfish endeavor.

After reading through the announcement posts a few more times, I recalled that exchange with my son. I sighed, looked out the window above my desk, and whispered, “What would you like to call your grandfather?” In that moment I wanted to hear from my future grandson or granddaughter. I wanted to know what they wanted. How did they see me? What would be their choice? What would touch them? What would matter to them? “I wish you could tell me,” I whispered again.

So many names for grandparents are born out of culture, native language, and ancestry. An Italian friend of mine had called his grandmother Nonna. German families use Opa for grandfather. Abuelo in some Spanish-speaking cultures. I’m English, German, and Irish mainly. I searched the internet. The Gaelic word for grandfather is seanáthair. But it’s not likely children would call their grandparent by that name. The more common Gaelic name for grandfather is daideó, roughly pronounced dad-yoh, with the accent on the first syllable. I also have a tad Welsh in my bloodline. I understand in the southern part of the country a grandfather can be called Bampi.

A few days before, my older son, the new uncle in this experience, asked from his home in Seattle, “Didn’t Hemingway have a grandfatherly nickname?” I reminded him of Papa. Although he knew of my love of Hemingway’s writing and had been trying to find a connection, using the name Papa struck me as being a copycat. A friend of mine whom I had secretly told the news about the coming birth asked, “What’s wrong with just Grandpa?” What is wrong with Grandpa? Again, the name sounded old and tired, and again, as before, I felt selfish thinking too much about this.

Attached to the Instagram announcements from my son and his wife was the latest sonogram photo. Looking at it awakened something unknown, an emotion not yet fully understood. The baby’s brain was forming, the heart. It was all there. How beautiful. If I asked now, could that little one hear me, the vibrations of my voice? And if so, could we communicate? Could he or she tell me what they’d like to call their grandfather?

What we call ourselves, what others call us, is deeply rooted. It is part of our identity, a part that will last a lifetime. Names classify and connect. Names define us. And naming a baby is its first gift, one you hope it will love forever. But for the grandfather, well, I have had my decades of identity shaping. I am fully defined, I believe.

I stood from my desk and stepped outside, the weather was cool but the low sun was bright and cast a soft shadow of a tree branch across the grass. It was a simple and beautiful vision. Near the outside door, white azaleas had begun to bloom, and the lavender of a rhododendron jumped out from the green that surrounded it. It was then that it came to me. This was what I wanted the coming little one to see and embrace. This world will be new and brilliant, an amusement, and at times, yes, a terror, and within it is a full life of beauty, mystery, tender sorrow, and overwhelming joy. The child’s senses will be alive with all of it. What does it matter what this little human calls me? It is inconsequential. Names may be linked to our identity, but not to our spirit.

Back inside, I sat at the desk again and I tried to recall the words of a brilliant writer. Not all of it was there, only pieces, so I searched my mind more deeply and finally rediscovered it online.

Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

I wrote the words of Jose Saramago in my journal. What he penned in his novel, Blindness was precisely what I had been feeling. Even when we cannot see what was, is, or will be, we are reminded that something much bigger exists in all of us—our soul—an intangible beauty that needs no name and carries no identity. Souls touch with no need for titles. And so, little one, it is true. Through genetic lineage, yes, I am your grandfather. But in some miraculous and mysterious way, you already know this. You already know me and I already know you, and there is no need for an introduction.

The sun was higher on the horizon now and I opened the window at the desk to allow the breeze to float in, and on it was the airy, morning melody of a single bird. I did not know the species, I did not know its name. Its song was all that mattered.