What’s In A Name?

My name belonged completely to a person I once loved but eventually grew to absolutely despise. What if you were named after someone accused of being a serial rapist? Asking for a friend of course. How would you explain that to anyone?

I was so embarrassed to change my name, I mean I can’t count how many people have asked me if I was married to which I of course answered a resounding “no,” but I was even more embarrassed to be named after him.

Before him, I didn’t really think people like him existed except on Criminal Minds. What is a sadistic narcissist anyways? Now I believe I’ve met one. Some people call them “father.” Like my grandfather’s father, the racist, the alleged klansman, another rapist. Like so many people’s fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins.

Anyways, graduation was coming around. I just couldn’t stand the idea of them giving him credit as I walked across the stage, calling me his name. This was the culmination of my mama’s mama’s mama’s dream and no one else’s, Mama Mary Alice.

Mama Mary Alice was so many things, but to me she was my rock, she was how I got through to the other side. Every day when I got off the bus she’d ask “you learn you something?” I’d say “yes” of course. I’d go into the lesson of the day, and she’d ask me questions. She was so proud when we were the first in our family to go to college, her baby’s baby’s babies. She would tell us the stories about the bridge called her back, how we got over, everything it took for me to walk across this stage. 

Her grandmother was born into slavery she said. She told me she would ask her grandmother about the lashes on her back, and her grandmother would tell her about the scars. I don’t remember all of the stories but one for knocking potatoes down and one for stepping on a watermelon. Her grandmother promised that old monster who owned her that it was a mistake, but she told my great-grandmother that it wasn’t. I come from a long line of rebels.

My grandmother also told me of how she was beaten in the same fashion as her grandmother by her mother, for an infraction I can only remember was also so small. I was shocked. How could her mother do this to her, after seeing the scars on her own mother’s back? 

She had plenty of horror stories about her mother, Alice, and how she treated her namesake, Mary Alice. My grandmother told me she believed it was because of who her father was. I remember exclaiming well Grandma, that wasn’t your fault! To which my grandmother answered one of the few things she has ever mentioned about her biological father even in all her stories. She answered that her mama would never let her see him, and talked down on him every chance she got.

What was it like to be the granddaughter of a woman who was born in slavery and the daughter of a man you barely know? I guess I can relate. My grandmother had many other pleasant, fun, harmless stories about her childhood and growing up her mother’s daughter. She took care of her mother until the day Alice died. Maybe she came to understand something she wasn’t saying. All I know is my mother’s middle name continued the namesake Alice & Alice, Alisha & Alison.

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” -Shakespeare