What’s in a Name? {Pt. 2}

“What’s in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake rose at his birth.” ~ James Joyce { Chapter 9, Ulysses }

As a storyteller, I find it remarkably difficult to tell my own story. I’m convinced that I share this affliction with other narrators… Preferring to become invisible, or to shrink into the background of the stories we weave—to be a fly on the wall, or to be the wall itself—that is the goal! But I set out to discover my backstory—to explore the myth(s) of my origin—with this project, & I still intend to follow through. I shared of this piece (or perhaps just the preface to it) over two years ago… So here’s Part 2 , in which I introduce you to my great-grandmother.

My great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother, & her precious poodle.

Her name was Mama Chila… Or so I believed, because that is what I heard her called by everyone else. My mother Brenda—whose name is fairly unique in the family—would boast about being one (the 11th to be precise) of over fifty grandchildren. My grandmother Norma—who shares a name with her eldest daughter—was the fourth of twelve children… All birthed by this matriarch of the farm in Quebrada, Puerto Rico. Her husband, the patriarch, was known to family & farmhand alike as Papa Juancho. My abuela spoke incredibly tenderly of both her parents for the rest of her life—eyes watering wistfully as I asked my questions about her childhood. Her father had passed some time before I was born, but her mother was still around to see the first few years of my life.

The memories I have of her are blurry & disjointed, at best… But apparently, I enjoyed lengthy conversations with my great-grandmother at the handful of big family gatherings I attended as a child. I can only imagine what it was we talked about, but I was a precocious child who gravitated to the company of elders from early on. I do remember being rocked to sleep by abuela—as she sang beautiful lullabies in Spanish—enough times to make her arms the place I felt most safe in the world. I don’t know how old I was when I finally realized that Chila was a nickname for Cecilia—meaning I was the grandchild named after her mother—but I remember it came as quite the surprise… So what did the youngest Cecilia speak to the oldest Cecilia about? Only the angels know.

I was much older when I learned that Cecilia Echeandia (not yet called Mama Chila) was 21 when she married Juan Felix Gonzales (not yet Papa Juancho)—who at the age of 37 was a full 16 years her senior. The feelings that came with this knowledge were softened in learning their marriage was opposed by one of Cecilia’s older sisters—who also married a Gonzales brother only five years her senior. All feelings aside, the age discrepancy certainly helps to explain how our matriarch went on to mother a dozen children… As well as how she lived to see her eldest grandchildren give birth to great-grandchildren. In a large family that goes by nicknames (& numbers) to keep track of who belongs to who, I believe there is a special tie to the one(s) you share your name with.

I’ve always loved my name—despite how frequently I’ve heard it butchered, disemboweled, & just plain mispronounced… I’ve also had many nicknames—yet none which I answer to more often than the one used by my family & my dearest friends. I delight in hearing my niece & nephew call me “titi Ceci,” & when I named this newsletter “La Belle Vie de Ceci” I was also delighting in the fact that « ceci » is a word in French—which offers a fun (if nonsensical) meaning for fellow Francophiles. It isn’t the beautiful life of Cecilia—because I don’t feel like I can speak for all the Cecilia’s. Even if I could, I don’t know that I’d call all their lives beautiful. The beauty lies in the mystery… In what I can’t remember speaking about with my elders, but believe I heard with my heart.

To be continued…