WordSisters

Author: Elizabeth di Grazia

  • If he’s Juan, Am I still his mom?

    If he’s Juan, Am I still his mom?

    Crystel and Juan Jose
    Crystel and Juan Jose

    Though I supported Juan changing his name, I was worried, too. I thought he’d feel adopted. All of his life, all 13 years, Jody and I had known him as Antonio. If he was now Juan, did that wipe out all the years he was Antonio, our son? I was worried that he wouldn’t feel a part of our family or our son anymore. I was worried about the distance that would organically occur from having been Antonio to now being Juan.

    I changed my name in 2002. I used to be Ann Smith. I wanted to shed my past. Antonio, on the other hand, wanted to claim his past.

    Maybe it was because I had changed my name and knew how important it was to claim one’s identity that I was able to temper my fears. I didn’t speak of them. Instead, I took Antonio out of school and drove him to the Hennepin County Courthouse to put his name application in. On the way, I spoke to him about how people would still call him Antonio just like they still called me Ann after I changed my name. Call me what you want, I thought then. I’m changing my name for me. I told him that he could decide to not care whether people called him Antonio or Juan and it might be less stressful. I explained that in time what name people called him would change and at some point when someone called him Antonio, he would know that they knew him from that part of his life. All the new people he met from here on out would know him only as Juan.

    To ease my name change from Ann to Elizabeth I decided to tell people that they could call me Beth Ann. Beth Ann felt like a stepping stone to Beth. Even before then I had to ask myself what I wanted to be called. Did I want to be Elizabeth, Liz, Lizzy, or Beth?

    When Antonio and I stood at the window the clerk taking our information was confused. He became even more confused after he asked me what Antonio’s name was changing to and I looked to Antonio for clarity.

    After I turned back to the clerk, I read the furrow that had developed between his eyes: How could this mother not know the answer to what her kid’s name is going to be? How could she be allowing him to make the decision? Wouldn’t this have been figured out before this moment?

    The clerk pushed pen and paper towards us. “Write it down. First. Middle. Last.”

    I slid the paper over to Antonio. He wrote, Juan Jose – first name. Antonio Sol – middle. di Grazia – last.

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    Until then I wasn’t sure that Antonio was going to keep any of his name. Maybe he would just want to be Juan Jose and drop the Antonio Sol.

    In the coming days I stayed attentive to see if there was any distance between Juan and me. Any sign of rebellion now that he wasn’t Antonio but this new guy Juan Jose. I worked to call him Juan Jose, correcting myself when I said Antonio, remembering how respected I felt when someone called me Beth after I changed my name.

    The distance didn’t come. I’m sure it was helped by still needing to be this 13-year old’s mom and asserting my momship. Juan Jose was tardy to his sixth hour class. This was his 13th tardy of the year.

    “You don’t understand, Mom,” he’d say to me. He’d go on to explain the difficulty, the impossibility of getting from one class to another on time.

    “I want to understand,” I’d say. “That’s why I’ll walk you from one class to another to experience it first-hand.” I added, “ And since I’m there, I’ll just sit next to you in class.”

    This wasn’t new to Juan. When he was Antonio, I had already done this twice before during the school year and a number of times during sixth grade.

    But, it appeared that I needed to up the ante because I wasn’t understanding his difficulty. After spending his sixth period together, I followed him to his 7th hour class. All the while he kept telling me to go home—none too quietly.

    “Oh, no. I took the afternoon to be with you, Juan,” I replied.

    He ducked into a bathroom. I waited in the hallway for him. Leaned against the wall, said hi to kids and teachers. Shook the principal’s hand.

    It took Juan about 15 minutes to speak to me in his 7th hour period. He realized that I wasn’t going to go away.

    No, I’m his mom. He’s my son. His name change didn’t change that a bit.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Fractured Heart

    African VioletsI woke in the night with a deep sadness and an image that was slowly fading.

    Leaning down, I had kissed my grandma. She was sitting on the chair that she always sat on in her kitchen, the one on the left when you came into the room. This seat gave her the best vantage point to greet people, and the large window overlooked her patio and into the neighbor’s back yard. Purple, white, and pink African violets lined her windowsill.

    My grandmother and I were close. I stayed with her while I was going to college, roaring my 650 Honda motorcycle up onto her brownstone patio. After parking, I bounded in her house and up the three steps to her kitchen. I slept with her when she was confused to give her comfort and to make sure she didn’t wander away. One afternoon she told me that I should call my mother, see my family. I told her she wouldn’t say that if she knew the truth. She didn’t bring it up again.

    I was at her side when she died. Holding her hand, telling her it was okay for her to go. Being with her while she was dying was a gift she gave me. It was me who called my mother and told her that grandma was gone. My mother had left hours earlier after telling me to call her when her mother had passed. Same as I told my siblings when our mother was dying.

    I recognized that the deep sadness I woke with comes from not having close ties to familial people. There were a number of aunts and uncles I had felt close to growing up. That is gone. Some, through death. Some by my choice to not remain close.

    Since House of Fire has been published, I’ve been unfriended on Facebook by all of my siblings. I have watched them drop away one by one.

    I have no regrets. As a writer, if you really want to write about what’s important, meaningful, and to be a change in the world, you have to write what is yours to write. Mine has been to write the unspoken.

    I had to be true to myself and to the parts of me that has lived the unspeakable.

    This doesn’t mean that there isn’t sadness and a sense of great loss. That is just as real as the telling.

     

  • The Dead Cat is Out of the Freezer

    IMG_0493Seasons change, and so it is time.

    We have a small window to perform our ceremony – in between the comings and goings of teenagers.

    A line forms and we sing “Amazing Grace” while walking to the burial place in the corner of the yard. Our daughter and her friend dug the hole earlier. To make sure it was big enough they placed Trouble the dog in the hole but he quickly jumped out.

    Seasons have changed for the children as well. A Cub Scout is now a Boy Scout who will be doing his Eagle project on Saturday. A small girl, who was always the first to jump into the swimming pool, is still the first to try most things in our house.

    Our procession takes us underneath the flowering crabapple. The sweet scent follows. I lay down the paper bag holding our beloved.

    There is a discussion about whether to bury Angel in the shirt that he is wrapped in. I kneel, gently cover his black and white face with the fabric so dirt won’t fall into his eyes. My stomach constricts. I straighten. Jody hands the girl the shovel.

    There was a day when the children were ten months old that I thought they would be that age forever. I could not see past that day to this one. Parenting was hard work. Parenting was demanding. It still is, but in a different way. Now I need to stay attuned to who they are, what they are doing. I can’t be any less present. Because I need to be there if only to say, I see you. I am watching you. Give me your phone.

    After our ceremony, as they are rushing off, I pull down the branches of the apple tree and smell the white flowers that within days will fall off the branches.

    I want to shout to the children’s departing backs that I’ll never give up. No matter how hard parenting may become, I’ll never give up.

    Angel our cat is gone. He had a good life. I have a good life. And, you are worth it.