Name

My writing for publication set us an assignment to write about our names. This is my piece, please comment.

My name sounds like the cool mornings of spring. Fresh grass and toothpaste. It sounds like were all on top of the world, that we have climbed there from our familiar holes.

My name tastes like summer and straws. It clicks off the roof of our mouths in such a persuasive manner, that you wish to do it again and again.

Its like the bittersweet sights of July, when August is on it way and the world is turning golden. Its a happy name. It means earth. It means light, torch, leader. It means the wished-for-child, bitterness and rebellion.

It comes from England, from a farm in the far west. There it means brown-haired and muddy, dirty and unloved. Although I am. I am treasured and held so very tightly.

There’s a story that goes with my name, one that just the family knows.

One day a mother and farther were driving. Their son strapped into the back seat, and their daughter growing steadily in the mother’s womb. They were on their way to the hospital, days before the little girl was due. The father’s mother had fallen ill. Her name was Marjorie-May. As they drove they received a telephone call from my father’s brother, Marjorie-May had passed away.

They say cancer was the culprit. The dad cried while mum patted his back, whispering words of comfort in his ear. Two days later their daughter was born. She was early, weak and had little chance of survival. Weeks turned to months and the little girl grew stronger and stronger. Soon she was home and back with her loving family.

They christened her Ella May. ‘Ella’ after a family descendant. And ‘May’ after a grandmother I would never meet.