Namesake

When I called my mother on Monday a little after noon, she told me nephew had just been born. He had all the right parts in the right places and was learning how to use them. My sister had only delivered 15 minutes earlier, but Mama handed her cell phone to her (so she could dote on the baby, I have no doubt). She sounded awful, as I expected, so I made sure she was okay, congratulated her, told her I loved her and was thrilled to have a new nephew and let her get back to trying to recovering.

Later that afternoon when I was sitting in a restaurant having a late lunch, my phone rang. It was my mother. She told me that the baby and my sister were both sleeping. And that my baby sis had named him after me. I had to find someone in the restaurant, tell them not to take my food yet and walk outside because I didn’t want a bunch of people I didn’t know watching me cry.

I was stunned. I hadn’t talked to her about names, so I had no idea which ones she was considering. I wasn’t even sure she was thinking about names, because she was planning on giving him up for adoption. She was having a hard enough time trying to make and live with a decision about that, so I didn’t ask about names.

I talked to her that evening, but didn’t ask about adoption. I figured that, if she’d made a decision, she would have told me. Instead, I told her that if she gave him up to make keeping his name a condition of the adoption. His middle name is his useless, absent father’s middle name, but I thought it was important to him to carry some small part of his heritage with him.

Then I asked her why she named him after me and told her how honored I was. She told me that she’d only known two men who stood by her and supported her, regardless. One was our father, and the other’s me. She’d already named two kids after Daddy and said it was my turn.

That’s not to say that both Daddy and I haven’t been ticked at her over the years. But she’s the only little sister I’ll ever have. At the core, she has a big heart and a profound ability to empathize with other people. She’s made some monumentally stupid decisions in her life, but I imagine most of us have. I know I have.

I’ve been recognized for many things over the years, but none can compare to this. Some people get buildings named after them. I got a kid who’ll carry my name, misspelled the right way, into the future. It’s as close to having a kid as I’ll ever get. In a way I have an honorary son.

Baptists don’t do christenings, at least not where I come from, and I seldom hear of godparents being named up there. I guess I’m a Baptist godfather.

As ominous as that sounds, it’s not a bad thing.

She decided to keep him, by the way. A number of people were interested in taking him, but once she saw him and named him, she couldn’t give him up. I suspected as much once I found out she’d given him my name.

I called last night, and Mama was giving him his bottle. My sister and her 16 year old son are staying with her while she recovers. Mama called him “Peanut”, and I told her his name was not “Peanut”. He has a perfectly good one that she should use.

She said that they were trying to figure out how to distinguish which of us they were talking about. I live 750 miles away, and I would hope that if one of them says “Jeffery pooped in his diaper again” or “Jeffery said his first word” that they would not be confused about which of us they’re talking about.

I’ve been walking on air for the last 3 days. I’m in the middle of moving, which is its own special hell, and still mourning the loss of my partner a couple of months ago.

I’ve been dreading Thanksgiving because Shannon and I always spent it together. He insisted on a huge traditional meal every year. I made him a turkey with dressing and giblet gravy one of our first together, and he insisted on it every year afterwards, even if it was just me and him.

Going through his things since he died and I’ve been packing, I found some that let me know that his early holidays were never very good and that he longed for a traditional one centered around the family dinner table. He loved waking up and smelling food already cooking, the aromas of sage and onions and turkey filling the air.

He was as sentimental as me, and I wasn’t sure I’d have much to be thankful for this year, other than a job and a roof over my head. Now I have something much bigger.

I’m tired and bruised and worn out from the moving, but I am going to have a good Thanksgiving knowing that my baby sis thought enough of me to name her baby after me.

As I said, some people get a building named for them. I got something much bigger and infinitely more valuable: a tiny human being.