What’s in a name?
Over the years, the names we are called change as we try out different proverbial skins. That endearing nickname your parents called you probably fizzled out as you opted for something cooler that your first group of best buds called you. In college maybe you were known by that one crazy thing you did on a night out, while during your “I need a job” years, maybe you migrated back to your full and most professional-sounding moniker. When I got married, I dropped a hard to pronounce (and spell) last name for a shorter and simpler one that helped me feel connected to my husband and my future family (though several of my credit cards and my Gmail account got left behind when my attention span for name changing ran out). But the one I wasn’t really prepared for, the one that would feel more special and meaningful than any other name, was becoming “mom.”
It's a hard-earned day when the small human you’ve been nurturing and catering to finally looks at you and recognizes that you are their person. A little duck finally imprinting onto the one who has been wiping their butt and sustaining their life since the moment their life began. They call you mama, and from that day on you don’t go a day without being named out loud for what you have painstakingly grown into. As somewhat of a “late bloomer” into accepting and enjoying motherhood, the day my first child looked in my eyes and called me Mama, I melted into a realization that might not have fully sunk in until that moment. When you’re pregnant, the mom part is quite theoretical. When I returned to work three short months into motherhood, I blinked vapidly at a woman who asked how my daughter was doing. My who? But in her eyes, I am and have always been her Mama. Her protector, her safe space, and a mom without question, without start or end date.
Since that day, different versions of mama roll easily off her tongue. I’m not sure how she picks which one, but I’m Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma and sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, a very loud and urgent MOOOOMMMMMM.
Sometimes she nuzzles into my neck and says it over and over, repeating it like an incantation, a worry stone she’s rubbing bare for comfort. She never took a pacifier, but just saying my name seems to soothe her. And the craziest part is, she’s talking about me. Each time her “Mom” and “Mommys” flow over me, I get broken down in the best way, water carving a new path in hard rock. With each call of my name, the shape of my body and heart changes, and her being gets etched even more deeply into my own.
Now that she’s a little older, it feels like ten minutes can’t pass without her saying “Hey Mom!” and me saying “Hey What?” and her showing me something mundane like an owie that’s magically healing or a nondescript creature she’s made from pipe cleaners. What she’s showing me can get old on some days, but what will never get old is knowing that she wants, more than anything, to show me everything that brings her joy. To share her pride, to seek validation in my eyes, to experience the world with me. For a little while, she is only mine and I am only hers.
I never knew a name could bear so much weight yet make me feel so light at the same time. So strange at first, yet something that could never be any other way. No one else in the world will ever know what it’s like to be her Mama. What an honor, what a responsibility, what magic. So, what’s in a name? Turns out – absolutely everything.
