Consider the Lilies
In my matriarchal career, I’ve broken traditions on both sides of our family. Husband’s family, for instance, had only produced one male child per generation for a long time. We’ve two sons. On my side, I’m the baby girl of a baby girl of a baby girl, and maybe longer than that. Our youngest is a boy.
Most of my baby girl grandmothers were “accidents” -- those late in life children born years after her youngest sibling. So this baby girl grandmother, for her first six years, was known only by the name of Baby. It wasn’t until she was six and started a few years of schooling that she needed another name at all. So her mother said to her, “To go to school, you need to have a name. What would you like your name to be?” Her favorite of her mother’s friends was named Lily, and so the child took that name for herself also.
I never got to meet any of my matriarchal grandmothers, but because of my mother’s stories of them, they are all alive to me.
3 comments:
What an endearing story. Naming my children was so important to me, I just can't imagine leaving it out altogether! She picked well, though, Lily is a favourite of mine.
Yeah, me too. These things happen.
My husband comes from a community where 8-10 children was average, and there were lots of families that had between 12 and 20! Their family only had five - subfertile, by their neighbours' standards. Of course, a generation later that all changed, and those kids now have the same 2.3 children (or whatever it is) that everyone else in the country has.
Most of the time, I must admit, I have trouble getting the names straight on just two kids, and I keep switching my husband's name with my son, as well!
My maternal grandmother would invariably call me 2 or 3 of her sons or grandkids names before she would finally get to mine. Funny how little things like that stick in your mind about those you loved.
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