Cooked Goose

The last few posts have been about naming your child. It is the first thing you will give your daughter, your son. I am of the opinion that giving a child a name is not some recreational activity for us, the parents. It’s not a canvas for some sort of self-expression. It’s not an opportunity to pay tribute to something we think noteworthy. And not something we give our child so that everyone will think, “Wow, your name must mean that your parents are cool.” I’m not saying every name needs to be steeped in meaning. For each of our kids, their names were chosen at least in part for the way they sounded. We liked the name.

With these latest posts along the theme of Naming, I’ve wanted to set the stage from which I might suggest to you, fathers, that our role in giving a name goes beyond bestowing on our children a good name. There seems to be an era, and perhaps a region that have long passed and/or shrinking in which a common question for us was posed in an uncommon way: “What are you called?” The setting in my mind has cowboy hats, horses, open plains, and a banjo plucking in the background. None of this is familiar to me (As an aside, nothing looks more comical than a Asian man in a cowboy hat), so I admit I cannot speak with any authority on matters this far country. I think it’s a safe bet, however, that where or whenever this question was commonly posed it was heard as the equivalent of our, “What’s your name?”

Regardless of what I suspect as the intent, the outdated wording highlights for me an interesting distinction. Allow me to further highlight the distinction by posing yet another question: “I know that’s your name, but what are you called?” You see, a person can have a name but be called something else. An alias. Nickname. All the way to what a person believes him/herself to be: Great, True, Beautiful, Brave, Smart, Dumb, Ugly, Liar, Useless.

To you fathers, I propose that your job of naming does not end with bestowing on your child a good name. You are an important, dare I say primary voice in determining what they will be called.

I heard an insightful lady once say that she believed the father has the unique role of naming the child. She didn’t mean it’s solely the father’s responsibility/privilege. As we all know, nowadays the father and mother together settle on a name they both like. No, she meant something that goes beyond settling on a name. When I heard her say it, there was this resonance. I remember thinking that the father more than any other calls the child into the world. He says, “Hey, you, this is who you are. What I believe you will become.” By so doing, he strengthens his son, his daughter to face a world of terrifying beauty.

Before my regretful name change, my father gave me a Korean name which means A Star that Shines Over Many. Naming is serious business in the Korean culture. There are certain procedures: patterns to follow, people on which the office of naming is bestowed. My father who was himself fatherless for the majority of his life took it upon himself to name us – me and my brother. He could’ve gone to some expert or followed some prescribed pattern. Instead, he wandered off tradition to give us a piece of his heart. Looking down at a helpless baby – one of millions, born in an obscure, humble part of the world to two ordinary people, he let his heart dream as big as he could and said, “My boy, you’re gonna be like a star that shines over many.”

I go by that name now. And carry with me his call. I want to live – dare to live in a way that honors my father’s inspired call on his son.

For a couple of years, I went by the name Harold. Whew. Glad I got that off my chest – that’s a load off. I’ve come clean. Opened the closet for all to see. Go ahead, Ye without sin ... Really, it’s not much of a secret anymore. For years, I tried to keep it under lock and key. The mention of American names in conversation would get my ears hot. In a panic, I’d attempt to hijack the conversation to fly it far, far away from the subject. In recent years though, I’ve grown lax. As it often does, the hiding grows more dreadful than the monster itself. Now, many of my friends know. My kids know. It’s a bit of an inside joke now. Haha … haaaaa. 

Oh yeah, American names. “What’s an American name?” You ask. Right. Unless you’re an immigrant, and a certain type at that, you wouldn’t know. In 1977 the world wasn’t quite so small. Globalization wasn’t a word. More xenophobic … maybe not. More centralized and narrow? Definitely. It wasn’t hip to be multicultural, to be a connoisseur of ethnic foods. It wasn’t cool to be Korean. In such a world, the American name was an attempt at quick assimilation. For a “bowl cut” kid, turned instant card carrying alien to his surroundings by hopping a 12 hr flight, the American name at the least took down the “sign” that blared, “I’m not from around here.”

Quick. Yes. But at what price? I wonder. What is more you then your name? An abrupt change like a violent face lift, no? A disowning of self. Maybe a name isn’t a mere name: Changing it, not so innocuous. Reading a bit too much into it? Maybe. If nothing else, the lesson might be: Something as important as naming shouldn’t be left to just anyone – definitely not to oneself. You do, and you get disasters like Metta World Peace, Whoopi Goldberg, … and, yeah, you get Harold.

Couple months ago, I met a guy who had those eyes – eyes that had seen a few things. We shared a meal, and he told me his story. After serving nineteen years of a fifteen to life sentence, he’d been out of prison for less than a year. Not an atypical story. At an early age, he got mixed up with a wrong crowd. Before he knew it, he was running with a gang, perpetrating petty crimes. The criminal activity escalated. By his late teens, he was locked up for robbery. His father visited him often. Told him he loved him, and that there was still a future for him. He wasn’t buying it.

Sometime that first year while doing time on robbery, he was pulled out of jail and charged with murder. “It was like a slap in the face. I was ‘asleep’, like everything was okay. And then ‘murder one’, it just woke me up. I did it; I knew I was guilty. I thought, ‘My life is over.'”

Again, his father was there. On one of his visits, he asked him, “Do you know what your name means?” He had an ethnic name, and being born in the States, he had never sought out its meaning. “Your name, it means ‘life’. And your middle name means ‘full’.” It broke his heart.

Later that day, back in his cell, his life changed. Couple days later, he was offered a plea. He took it. At sentencing, he was, in his words “…so ashamed, but given the courage…” to face his victim’s family, apologize, and ask for forgiveness. To his surprise, the father of the victim stood and asked the judge for leniency. “He is just a boy,” he heard this father say, “My boy cannot be brought back, but this one still has so much life left.”

“Your name, it means Life.”

What’s in a name? I’d say quite a bit. Like the hopes of a father. The man I met was a man determined to live up to his name.

Look, I’m not saying I get that first thing. I’ve already divulged that I’ve dragged my wife through my darkness. Then there’s the selfish, self-centeredness. Before we married, my wife noticed that I always managed to will my way at the local Blockbuster. “We’d always end up getting something you wanted to watch. I really wondered if I could deal with that kind of selfishness.” “But, but … my choices were better … I was only trying to help.” We still watch a lot of Sportscenter. Yeah, I do dominate that remote … like all the time. Okay, right. I am very opinionated – often bullish about it. It does genuinely surprise me when I am wrong, which ought to mean that I’m frequently surprised. I am not. And that, my friends points to a serious gap in self-awareness. Who I think I am looks about as much like who I really am as Denzel Washington looks like Martin Lawrence. Not the most affectionate guy in the world. Slow to the trigger with words of affection or praise. And a down right bad gift giver. One Christmas I gave her a set of steak knives, okay! There I said it. If the first thing in loving my kids is loving their mother, I’m still not breaking even at the first thing.

All I’m saying is I believe they’re connected: Your love for your kids and your love for their mother. It “sets the table.” It’s the source, the foundation. The kids get an orientation to relationship. And from the love between you and their mother radiates out the love for them. Think about it: How many couples who love one another, end up hating their kids? Can’t think of too many, right? Now think about this: How many men would accept another man raising their kids while they are still alive? Not many. But those very same men, who would otherwise consider the proposition unimaginable, routinely let this happen to get away from the woman they’ve grown to disdain. The belief that we can by-pass that first relationship without affecting the second is wrong.

What I’m saying is this: You want to love your kids? Love their mom. It’s not easy, I know. I certainly haven’t gotten it right. It’s not too late for me though. With help, I can do it. Big or small every little step counts. For those who seek it, there’s always hope. Even for someone as lost as me.