Category: What’s In A Name?

15 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, grief, Mental Health, Parenting, The Mothers, What's In A Name?

Looking for Dorothy, I wanted to find a kindred spirit.

Regina Lynette

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria. And I have been searching for myself in my mothers’ gardens. Even though I didn’t want to find myself in Dorothy for a long time, getting to know her as an ancestor has helped me to see some seeds of myself in her garden – because of Dorothy I am predictably unpredictable, and have a wandering spirit.

Dorothy Lee Thomas (Terry) was my grandmother. She was never known as grandmother but as Dorothy to Mommy’s children. Her given name is Dorothy Lee. Her maiden name is Thomas. And her married name was Terry. I don’t know if she ever married again after Warren Thomas Terry – never known as grandfather and causing some confusion with his middle name always listed and the same as my grandmother’s maiden name. She was called Dorothy. She was called mean. She was called unstable. And she was called unpredictable. Later I would know she was called a free-spirit and she was called independent.

I had a baby doll that I slept with from my first memories until she fell apart. I named her Sleepy Baby because she was sleeping, and she was a baby. I was never creative with naming my inanimate objects – my favorite teddy bear is named Bear. Sleepy Baby was all I knew of Dorothy for years, because the baby doll was a gift from her, and I remember Daddy telling me so. I don’t believe I ever met my Dorothy. I don’t have a lot of details about the last time she was in Memphis visiting the family but when Mommy was found chain-smoking and rocking in her bed, Daddy announced that Dorothy didn’t have to go home but she had to get the hell out of there. He drove her to the bus station and then Dorothy was gone. Mommy is the one who called her mother unpredictable most often. Most of the memories she shared were about times that started out happy and ended horrifically, sometimes ending in some kind of violent behavior.

This is the only photograph I have with Sleepy Baby. Not sure how long I thought holding her by her feet was the best idea. I have memories of rocking her to sleep in my arms before I went to bed myself.

Sleepy Baby was a doll made of a plush pale pink stuffed onesie with a pale plastic face, pursed pink lips, and closed eyelids. Her onesie was hooded, and yellow tufts of hair peeked out from underneath the seam. The pale pink satin ribbon was never tied in a bow as it obviously was when I got her but dangled the way ribbons on pigtails dangle at the end of the school day.

The vast majority of what I know about Dorothy consists of a timeline of events from genealogical research and imagining her reactions and responses to life events through a filter of my own experiences.

Dorothy was born on Halloween in 1925 to parents who were presumably married at the time, ages 16 and 22. She was the middle child of “stair-step” daughters – her older sister was just about 15 months older, and the baby was just about 13 months younger. Her baby sister died at about 6 months old. She and her older sister were just toddlers at the time, so I imagine the baby was just a family story for her. But it was one that she never forgot. We found a list of “characters” in Mommy’s baby book where Dorothy listed family members and Essie Mae was included. I think in a more positive series of events she would have been considered the family historian, always writing long notes on the back of photographs and in Mommy’s baby book. Dorothy would lose her mother when she was just 14 years old and then go on to live with her father and his aunt for at least the next two or three years.

Dorothy Lee, mother of Donna Maria, grandmother of Regina Lynette.

This photograph was taken during Dorothy’s high school years – I believe she attended Booker T. Washington in Memphis – and is the best photograph I’ve seen of her.

Dorothy has posed for at least one other professional photograph that I’ve seen and sent a few snapshots in letters. She wrote on the backs about how bad she looked or that she had been ill in the photographs.

I’ve compared my high school photographs with Dorothy’s trying to find myself in her face.

Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee

Here’s a picture of me in high school, wearing Fashion Fair Cherry Wine lipstick just because it was Mommy’s signature color.

Please excuse those ends. My ends hadn’t been trimmed for about 5 years and I was taking off 3 inches at a time that summer to avoid a short cut that I was not allowed to get. A few months later I turned 18, my father’s age of hair-cutting consent, and chopped it down to a chin-length bob – best decision ever.

From my own experience of losing my mother at age 13, I can assume that Dorothy was wounded emotionally in a way that only a girl-child who loses her mother in early teens can understand. I know what it is to be a Motherless Child and to be shattered by that loss.  Did Dorothy have suicidal thoughts when her mother died like I did? Did she make a feeble attempt at killing herself, wanting to be wherever it was that her mother was like I did? Did Dorothy have the same “slips” in her mental stability – and by “slips” I mean instances where your mind plays tricks on you rather than remaining in the rational and logical – that I did? Maybe she sat at the front door waiting to see headlights that meant her mother was coming home from an evening errand as many times as I did. She might have seen an usher at a church she was visiting who looked like her mother and imagined that she was back and would explain how she came back to tell her that she was in witness protection and had to fake her death. If Dorothy had any strong identity with a parent, it was likely with her mother and the loss would cause her to struggle going forth. Did the family worry about her yet spin out because they had no solutions for their own grief, much less hers like my family? I bet it was a critical break in Dorothy’s life that affected all the days of the rest of her life, and likely the first one of many.

I know that Dorothy sang well even though I never heard her. She sang in talent shows and was asked to join a male singing group when they wanted to add a female voice. If I remember correctly, this was The Platters – she was dating one of them – and I suppose this was before they added Lola Taylor. The dates don’t match up to the story in my head so maybe it wasn’t The Platters but whatever the group, as the story stands, I can imagine Dorothy might have gained some fame from joining this musical group. She wasn’t allowed to join them – Daddy Rod didn’t let her go – and I wonder could this have been the cause of a second “slip” in Dorothy’s mental stability. She probably lost that boyfriend and a dream of singing all in one single blow. This is the last time I’m aware of hearing her pursuit of a singing career and what a knock-out punch it must have been to have a dream snatched away from you. I do believe this happened shortly after her mother’s death and before her daughter was born but I have no idea of the dates to confirm. It’s exciting to know that Dorothy performed in talent shows all around the city of Memphis and heartbreaking to know that she wasn’t able to pursue a dream of a singing career. If a dream deferred causes the heart to be sick, what in the world does a dream denied cause? Another “slip” in Dorothy’s mental stability, I believe.

I was in second grade when Dorothy resurfaced for a matter of months until her death. This little girl had lost both her grandmothers and was about to gain a great-aunt and an uncle.

This is the first time I visited my “new” great-aunt, uncle, and a distant cousin in California. It was shortly after Dorothy’s death which effectively ended Mommy’s estrangement from her family, though I don’t think Dorothy was involved in the cause for the estrangement.

I imagine Dorothy as a wounded child who never found significant healing from her disappointments and the bitter side of the unfairness of life, causing her to act out sometimes. I believe Dorothy did the best she could often finding that it wasn’t enough, and maybe that made her stop trying. And in her hurting state, Dorothy probably did more than her fair share of hurting other people. Does this mean that if she had a different relationship with her father or with her sister or with her first husband that she would have been kinder? Maybe. Maybe not. If she had a successful singing career instead of a teenage pregnancy and unsuccessful marriage, would she have been stable? Maybe. Maybe not. If her mother had not died too young at age 31, would she have been more predictable? Maybe. Maybe not. And broken hearts don’t all heal the same way.

Because I want to find a kindred spirit in my grandmother, I look for myself in her garden and when you search for something you’re likely to find something – whether or not it’s truly the thing you were seeking. I’ve been called independent, like Dorothy, and I imagine I plucked those seeds from her garden. I’ve been called a free-spirit (even though I’m not sure I agree), like Dorothy, and I imagine some of those seeds came from Dorothy. I’ve been called mean and I’ve hurt others when I was hurting, like Dorothy. I’ve been called unstable, like Dorothy, and live with a Bipolar II Disorder diagnosis, unlike Dorothy. But my favorite and the one I’ve massaged the most is that I’ve been called unpredictable, predictably unpredictable to be exact.

My former college roommate called me predictably unpredictable, showing no surprise when I did or said something that seemed contradictory to my typical choices. Yes, I could be unpredictable in a way that negatively affected my loved ones and my close ones, but thankfully it’s often more benign. Some of my atypical choices receive a response similar to, “I would never have thought you’d ever want that one” or “I can’t believe you actually did that.” And generally, it’s about things like the time I sang at The Apollo Theater, when I couldn’t give up coffee and then just because it was a Saturday I lost all desire for it, or the time I called the floral print mug with a gold handle perfect. Why in the world would I jump up on stage at The Apollo Theater? I don’t sing well, even though I love to and give it all I’ve got. It was a fake show during a tour of the theater, but not something you can expect me to ever do. It was a once in a lifetime thing, and my hair was sassy, and I was enthralled by the fact that I could touch the stump for good luck, jumping on the same stage where Ella Fitzgerald first sang. I had spent my life trying not to become addicted to coffee but it became hard to start mornings without it. And then I woke up one Saturday and didn’t want any. It would be at least three days before I noticed that I didn’t want any coffee – even with the smell of fresh hot coffee brewed with cinnamon each morning – and that was that. That floral mug would have been the perfect balance to all the things I find rustic and casual. And it’s probably the only fancy mug I’ll ever want.

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria.

10 Min Read, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Family, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker, Smart and Pretty, What's In A Name?

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria.

Regina Lynette

In the year 1889 in the perfect month on the perfect day, Peoria was born in Arkansas. Twenty years after her birth in 1909 in the perfect month on the perfect day, Peoria gave birth to Odetta in Arkansas. While Odetta was yet 16 years old, she gave birth to Dorothy Lee on October 31, 1925 in Memphis, Tennessee. Dorothy Lee was also 16 years old when she gave birth to her daughter, Donna Maria on September 16, 1942 in Memphis, Tennessee. And when Donna Maria was in her 33rd year of life, she gave birth to me on December 12 in Memphis, Tennessee. I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria.

Peoria Cox {circa 1889 – December 10, 1945}; Mothers unkown

My mother told me who this was when I was a child, but I regrettably do not recall what she said. For many reasons, I have made a guess that this is Peoria. I have no way to know if that’s accurate but until I get different information, the person in this photo represents Peoria, my mother’s great grandmother.”

Peoria, who gave birth at 20 years old to Odetta, lost that girlchild a mere 31 years later to apoplexy due to interstitial nephritis. Peoria was presumably involved in her granddaughter, Dorothy Lee’s, life until her own death on December 10, 1945, of cerebral hemorrhage due to unknown causes. Peoria outlived her daughter – my mother often said that losing a child was the worst pain in the world so I declare that Peoria survived the worst pain that life could dish out. Dorothy Lee, who lost her mother at 14, gave birth 2 years later without her mother. I declare that Dorothy Lee’s losing her mother as a young teenager was something incredibly difficult because losing my own mother as a young teenager was incredibly difficult. Donna Maria was born without a grandmother. She was but 3 when her great-grandmother died – who we only presume was involved in her life. But Donna Maria outlived her mother, Dorothy, who died of cancer while Donna was 42 years old. I would not know Peoria existed until I was an adult and even then, she was only a name in a baby book and on a death certificate. I did not know that Odetta Cox existed until I was in college and at that time she was only a name in an email provided through my uncle from a distant cousin, a name in a baby book and a name on a death certificate. I knew of Dorothy Lee but never met her before her death when I was 8 years old. I lost my mother from a heart attack about 5 years later, 2 weeks after my 13th birthday.

Odetta (Cox) Thomas {circa 1909 – March 24, 1940}; Daughter of Peoria Cox

I am not certain that this photo is my great-grandmother but based on a relatively reasonable deduction, I think this is Odetta.

My maternal ancestry can be traced back to the Bamileke (a corruption of the name) People of Cameroon and this has been guaranteed accurate from Odetta. Where did that heritage die out? Did Peoria – who is not guaranteed by our DNA testing to be from the Bamileke People of Cameroon – pass down any traditions, rituals or recipes to Odetta? Dorothy didn’t live her entire childhood with Peoria and Odetta so would she even have been passed down anything of her maternal line? Was our heritage completely wiped out by the ins and outs of slavery leaving Dorothy, her mother and her grandmother to have little to pass on? I don’t know. I’m left to put pieces together from birthdates, death certificates, and general world history. Peoria was born a free woman but her mother would have likely been born a slave and then freed by the time Odetta was born. I have no details for Peoria’s mother’s history – not even Peoria’s maiden name. I am happy to know my mothers’ names from my great-great grandmother. But I know very little about their gardens because 2 weeks after my 13th birthday, they were all gone.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers’ names.

Alice Walker, O Magazine, May 2003

“Mama’s baby, daddy’s maybe” was not the prevalent pattern in my family. Hardy Cox was in his daughter, Odetta’s, life. Rodney Thomas cared for his daughters after Odetta’s death as well as my mother, his granddaughter, and her children. While I don’t know the story behind Warren Terry’s absence in Donna’s life beyond the time he enlisted in the army during World War II, he was married to her mother and his family is mentioned as a part of her young life. And I was Robert Walker’s Daddy’s Girl, identifying more with his side of the family than my mother’s. In fact, most of what I know to be true and passed down in my family is from the men. I’m grateful for these men because I can attribute a lot of positive things from their influence. However, I really miss not knowing my maternal tribe.

Dorothy Lee Thomas {October 31, 1925 – May 15, 1985}; daughter of Odetta (Cox) Thomas, daughter of Peoria Cox

This is a photo of Dorothy from high school. I have more recent photographs of her but she wrote notes on the backs of them stating that she looked horrible and was ill (or convalescing).

A few years ago I felt particularly lost and was looking to find myself in my family. Since I was nothing like my siblings and not a lot like my mother (other than sometimes my eyes and sometimes my smile), I looked to my father’s family. I didn’t find my face (other than my happiest smile), my body, nor my personality in any of them. Much later I caught a glimpse of myself (personality) in my mother’s brother and I realized that I hadn’t looked to find myself in my mothers’ gardens. I’ve decided to use the photos in this entry to represent these mothers in my sacred space and I constantly look for myself in their eyes and faces and hands and hair.

Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.

Michele Filgate, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About (Simon & Schuster, 2019)

One good thing about the deceased is that the rest of the generations to come have a chance to only know the best of that person. I don’t mean that the bad goes away or that you shouldn’t know the full history of a person – generational curses, ancestral rituals, as well as their life stories. I mean that when I tell stories about my parents, I tell the hard parts through a filter of both understanding and acceptance. I’ve had to forgive them for all of their mistakes. I’d begun the forgiveness process with Daddy before he died, thankfully, but I didn’t realize I had to forgive my mother until she had been gone several years (and family secrets were revealed). I have tried to understand Dorothy as well when I hear hard things about her, often trying to guess what might have happened to her to cause poor behaviors. When my sister’s children indulge me and let me walk them around Memphis telling tales of our history, it’s “my parents met in this lobby and it was love at first sight” rather than “my Daddy was married and 24 years older than my Mommy when they started their affair”. Neither version is a secret and while both are true, one is more fun to talk about to the ones who didn’t know them.

Donna Maria (Terry/Thomas) Walker {September 16, 1942 – December 26, 1989}; daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria

Mommy’s parents married a couple months after she was born and her maiden name on her birth certificate is Thomas (Dorothy’s maiden name). However, I found a doodle from either Dorothy or Mommy that had Terry (Donna’s father) as her last name – kind of the way you doodle your own name with your crush’s last name in your school notebooks.

So, while unfortunately I do not know of any remaining family who can share stories about my generations of mothers, I do get to put the pieces together guessing the best outcomes and I can channel my own femininity from common Bamileke/Cameroonian ancestral rituals and fill in the gaps with pieces of myself.

Regina Lynette Walker; daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria

I am Regina Lynette, daughter of Donna Maria, daughter of Dorothy Lee, daughter of Odetta, daughter of Peoria.

5 Min Read, Parenting, Relationships, Robert Samuel Walker, Spirituality, What's In A Name?

Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

Regina Lynette

I once walked away from Christianity as I knew it. I didn’t exactly denounce Christ as my savior, but I let go of every single thing except the fact that I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior and was therefore saved – my anchor point of remaining a Christian. I joked (because it was uncomfortable to talk about) that I was going AWOL from the Army of the Lord. I wanted, no needed, to let go of everything and get down to the basics. I stripped away everything that felt limiting and tried everything I found curious. I wanted to learn for myself what it meant to be a Christian because my teachers and preachers had taken Christianity and packaged it in manipulation and contradictory philosophies bound with illogical rules that were not Biblical. This action didn’t please Daddy, although he wasn’t around for the peak of my departure. He was around when I started questioning things and even challenging him on things. Most often he responded to me calmly, matter-of-fact-ly (I did that on purpose), and honestly. Occasionally he reacted from past traumas from past experiences with “church-folk”. But never did he use Christianity or our Baptist beliefs as a weapon or a tool to sway me in any direction. So when my questions turned to a need to physically explore, he told me it was okay. He said that I have a wandering spirit and though he didn’t say it explicitly, he believed that because Christianity, specifically Missionary Baptist was the truth and the way that I would return.

At the peak of my departure from Christianity as I knew it, I had a couple of close friends who were “church friends”. Our friendship was based on living according to Christian principles and almost served an explicit purpose of keeping each other on the straight and narrow. While I knew they were very pious, I didn’t learn the nature of our friendship until it ended, you know 20/20. When I was exposed to the leaders and preachers that they followed and called anointed, I began to see more of the hypocritical and manipulative tactics used against parishioners and their ignorance and this caused fissures in the friendships. I was told that I have a runaway spirit – among other demonic spirits that had supposedly overcome me.

Senior year of college, standing in front of the church I belonged to at the time. A friend is cut out of the picture.
Dear friend, if you remember being in this photo, it’s nothing personal but I just needed to be a solo picture and I didn’t find another.

Wandering Spirit was a compliment and Runaway Spirit was an insult. Well, maybe Wandering Spirit wasn’t intended exactly as a compliment but it was something that my father saw in me and accepted, allowing me to choose to embrace it if I wanted. Is that really true? Yep. Runaway Spirit was a term to encourage me to get back on track, whatever that was, and it felt derogatory and manipulative. Is that really true? Eh…

I’ve only shared one situation here in which I was called a Wandering Spirit by my father and a Runaway Spirit by others but both of those identifiers have a long list of items behind them. And my behavior has been both Wandering and Runaway at times. When I learn that something I’ve always believed is true is flawed in some way, I need to test it for myself. I need to get to the root of the truth, the unadulterated truth, the pure truth, and I need to be right – not insisting that people agree with me no matter what but to know the thing that is true and right. When something is no longer serving me I let it go – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but always completely. When a person is crushing my spirit or rejects the parts of me that they don’t particularly like or understand, I remove them from the closest parts of my spirit, my soul, my heart. And anything that gives me bad vibes – a space or a person – is something I leave quickly. If I wander and don’t return to the thing I wandered off from, have I runaway?

College years again, at a collegiate Christian conference. Again, a friend is cut out of the picture.
Dear friend, we took a lot of college + church photos together. And I didn’t find any of me alone. Nothing personal.

Runaway spirit is an identifier, placed on me by limiting and closed minded people, probably with what they believe to be good intentions. I’ve left it behind.

As a little girl Mommy would always tell me to stay with her whenever we entered a store. If my big brother or sister was with us I would beg to go with them. Sometimes she let me but often she insisted I stay by her side. I think that every single time we entered any of the stores we entered during all 13 years I had her in my life that I managed to get lost in that store to some degree. Eventually I mastered the return quickly enough to not cause too much trouble but it all depended on what caught my eye and prompted me to wander off. Sissy has told me that often she turns to say something to me when we’re walking and suddenly I’m not there. And there have been plenty of times that I’ve had to stand still and be found in a store, like I did three weeks ago. As an adult I’ve truly felt like telling a stranger that I lost my sister in a store so I can get some help. But it’s always because I’ve needed to know more about something I’ve seen. And I always return to the original purpose of our outing.

Runaway Spirit or Wandering Spirit?

Iam Regina Lynette. I am a Wandering Spirit.

5 Min Read, Brothers And Sisters, Donna Maria Thomas-Walker, Robert Samuel Walker, What's In A Name?

Rebel Gina

Regina Lynette

Why would I expect to behave just like all of my family? I was born “off-generation” – my father was old enough to be my grandfather. He was number 5 in a family of 15 children. The brother that I know he spent most of his happier times with was 20 years younger than he. My first cousins weren’t my friends because they were old enough to be my parents. My oldest siblings were old enough to be my parents. In fact, 3 nieces and a nephew are older than I. My youngest siblings were not my friends but my secondary care-givers as they were teenagers in the house when I was born. And because I was born into a blended family – the sole member in the Venn diagram of my family – my home culture was different than that of any of my siblings. The day-to-day norms of my father’s first family unit were different than those of my mother’s first family unit and different than those of my day-to-day norms. Why would I expect to behave just like all of my family?

Why would I expect to look just like all of my family? I was the only child between my parents. I have no other siblings with both my mother’s and my father’s genes combined. I don’t particularly look like my oldest siblings who possess half of my father’s genes and half of their mother’s genes. I don’t particularly look like my youngest siblings and we all have different fathers. My paternal grandfather was gone well before I was born and I never saw a photograph of him until I was an adult. I couldn’t find myself in his face. My paternal grandmother was around for the first 8 years of my life but I probably saw her about 8 times in that life. I couldn’t find myself in her face – she was in her 80s for all of my life which I’m sure didn’t help. I didn’t see my face in that of my paternal aunties and uncles. I didn’t look like my cousins. My maternal grandfather was essentially a question mark and as far as genetics from him he remains a question mark. A photograph was sent to me fairly recently that is unconfirmed but highly likely him and I don’t see myself in his face. My maternal grandmother was unknown to me except in a photograph and I couldn’t find myself in that picture. I didn’t find my face in my mother’s only sibling – my uncle has a different father than my mother. Why would I expect to look just like all of my family?     

Why would I expect to be the same person as all of my family? They are my tribe but I was not raised in my tribe. I was raised as if I were an only child. I was raised in a household of three people of three generations. I was raised by people who intentionally raised me with a different hand than the one they’d used to raise their older children. And I was raised in a vacuum of sorts – we were estranged from much of my family both immediate and extended. I was born in what has now been considered a sub-generation, not quite the generation before and not quite the generation after, a proud Xennial. I lived in what was considered “the country” to my maternal family and what was considered “the city” to my paternal family. And much of my life was presented to our community as a series of lies of omission. To be accepted by all the different sectors of my tribe, when necessary for us to interact, I had to imitate a person they would admire and value. Why would I expect to be the same person as all of my family?

When Mommy sent me out with Daddy alone, she told me not to be myself and to not let people see how I really act. I think I’ll just leave that right there for now.

The first years after college graduation were pretty hellish for me (and therefore everyone else around me). If rage could be a person, I was that person. Rage and fury kept my blood between a low simmer and a rolling boil all day every day. During that period of time my sister named me Rebel Gina. The first time she gave me that name she explained that she was confused by my behavior and even pointed out that I looked like I was dressed for combat – I wore Army green and black when I wasn’t wearing heather gray and black which I associated with grief, funeral clothes. My hair was short and red and wild – it was chemically relaxed but I didn’t straighten it with heat and let it dry by holding my head out the window speeding down the highways. I listened to rock music – an unofficial no-no for my family and according to what I’d been told, not intended for black people in general. I wasn’t in church every time the doors opened. In fact, I didn’t have a church home for the first time in my life though I generally attended my sister’s church at the time. And things considered New Age and Occult captured my interest. What was happening was I was experimenting with the “real” me who was screaming to be released from oppression.

I miss Rebel Gina even though she was too angry for me to embrace with joy. And Rebel Gina was not intended to be a compliment of any kind – maybe not quite an insult but it was not intended as a good name. In my rage I loved the name she gave me. It fit what was happening; I truly was rebelling against everyone and everything all day every day. If Rebel Gina wants to come back wearing graphic tees and destructed denim, teaching me how to relax, she’s welcome. If she can simply revel in the joy and charm of Regina Lynette, she’s very welcome to stay.

3 Min Read, Social Media Handles, What's In A Name?

I am Regina Lynette. My first official handle was WoundedHealer76.

Regina Lynette

The introduction of all things Internet – email in particular – presented a need to create a handle. Creating a personal email address required the perfect handle and I took some time to make a meaningful choice. This was going to be another name, chosen by me this time, and I wanted it to be one that could describe my identity for eternity. I landed on godzgrl (God’s Girl). I was choosing Christianity for myself so to speak at that time and full of unbridled zest for the religion to be sure to be a living representation of Christianity at its finest, evangelizing by the blessed life it would soon manifest. I’ll leave that there for now.

Between a spiritual crisis of sorts and people’s misunderstanding of the handle – for some reason many went to Godzilla Girl – I decided to find a more suitable handle when opening my social media accounts. I chose the handle WoundedHealer76 for several reasons but the most important is because of what it means.

A Wounded Healer is a person who is compelled to heal others because she herself is wounded. Generally, the Wounded Healer manages to heal others but is unable to heal herself. At the time I took on that name, it fit well. The pain I needed to heal from at the time was emotional. Whenever a pity party felt imminent, the laundry list of all things unfair that I’d suffered during the first 25 years of my life was long. And I had no idea why these things were happening to me. So trying to figure out the existential question, “Why?” with no response (from God), I settled on the next best thing – become a martyr of sorts.

I was sexually abused as a toddler and on and off for 20 years of my life because I was supposed to help victims of sexual abuse. I suffered under the hands of an abusive step-monster while my father emotionally neglected me because I was supposed to become a great parent (or at least a good stepmother). I lost my mother 14 days into my teen years because I was supposed to help young girls grieve their mothers. And I was vigilant when presented with the opportunity to help anyone in this way. Fortunately I know that I truly helped many people. But I remained wounded. I couldn’t find my way out of my own suffering. Nor did it seem like anyone else could help me navigate my way out of my own pain. Thankfully I had enough sense to seek professional help. But as I said, unable to heal myself.

If I wore my name Regina like a diamond tiara, then I wore Wounded Healer like that super cute hat or beautiful wrap/scarf that is hiding unruly hair between whatever treatments and styles you usually wear. It’s cute, like I said, and you are working it, but it’s covering up the imperfections and the secrets and the ugly things. It doesn’t actually resolve anything.

I have tried to release the handle WoundedHealer76 but I just can’t let it go. I no longer believe myself to be a martyr. I accept that there are things in my life that though they happened for a reason, I don’t yet know or understand that reason. Maybe it’ll all make sense in the end. I’m no longer driven to make it purposeful. But as with God’s Girl, Wounded Healer was a perfect name for a season. And as I believe that I am the sum of my life experiences, I will always have a part that is called God’s Girl and a part called Wounded Healer.

I am Regina Lynette. And I have been a Wounded Healer.

5 Min Read, What's In A Name?

I am Regina Lynette.

Regina Lynette

With intention and on purpose, my parents named me Regina Lynette. I didn’t choose my name – none of us does. But I learned to love my name at a very young age. And eventually, I began to make some choices about how my name was documented. The first choice I made about my name was in high school because that’s when you start signing documents and applications that will follow you for several years of higher education. I would go through several iterations over the years.

I first decided to document my name as Regina Lynette Walker. No middle initial for me – please spell my middle name. There were some limitations of course but I fully embraced my name in its entirety as given to me by my parents and documented on my birth certificate and social security card.

At this time in my life I had lost my mother, was living in hell with a step-monster, had lost my auntie/godmother and therefore had lost my little sister, and my name was all I had left in some ways. Mommy had a reason for naming me Regina – a hope for elegance. Daddy taught me to wear the royal crown that is the name Regina. My little sister was forever connected to my heart through our shared middle name, even though we were separated when my step-monster imprisoned me and my father emotionally abandoned me. After I graduated college, I eventually made another choice about my name.

The second choice I made about using my name was to “change” it to Regina L. Walker. Practically, it was a bit shorter and I had room for the flourishes I used for my cursive capital letters. It looked mature and was a nod to something my mother told me about her name.

My parents were older – I was called a “pleasant surprise” and there was a gap of 24 years between them. So, they had been educated in a more formal and what might be called sexist way of using married names. I think the form she’d been taught was First/Given Name, Maiden Name, Married Name. For her, this meant sacrificing her beloved middle name. She decided to go against that rule and used First/Given Name, Middle Name, Married Name. And most often she only used her middle initial rather than her full middle name. So now, my name format matched hers and I’d planned to completely drop my maiden name upon marriage just the way she did. Honestly, I lost all emotional connection to the name Walker during that time. My father had died and if I married, there was no one in his place to honor or pay homage to with a surname. And then something painful happened that I don’t fully comprehend that brought forth the most recent choice I’ve made about my name.

I made a third choice of documenting my name by dropping my middle name and initial altogether – Regina Walker. I don’t know what happened to provoke this change but I felt passionately about dropping that initial. I wanted my name to total 12 letters because the number 12 is ubiquitous in my life – for example my birthday is December 12 or 12/12.

 I didn’t want to discuss my middle name with inquiring minds. I felt guilt about losing my baby sister and wondered where she was and how she was doing. I felt like I’d betrayed my godmother. My heart was broken, and I had stopped speaking along that gold thread to my sister’s heart nor did I hear anything from the other end. I would cringe when I saw my middle initial and changed it everywhere I could.

I’ve covered the three times I made a choice about my name and never mentioned how I got to Regina Lynette – the name of this blog. Well, that was chosen specifically for the blog and is not a name I use on documents nor is it a name I particularly want to be called. I continue to use only my first and last name for documentation. I continue to be called Regina or Gina as appropriate (and one other name that is only for one other person, and he knows who he is). But as I go along this journey that I’ve named Identity, I am using the two names that were given to me, selected with intention and purpose. While it has significance, I don’t include my surname here because I got that by default and there is no journey to follow to figure out who I am as a Walker – my temperament and some physical features have done that sufficiently.

I am Regina Lynette. The name Regina is of Latin derivation and means Queen. The name Lynette is of French origin and means Pretty One.

*Technically the name Lynette has many different origins and meanings. The American/Anglo Saxon is “bird”. The Celtic is “Grace”. The Latin origin means “mild”. And the French-Welsh/Welsh meaning is “nymph” or “idol”. I’ve taken a simpler definition with heavier influence of the French and use the definition “Pretty One”.

5 Min Read, What's In A Name?

My middle name is Lynette. Not many people know that.

Regina Lynette

At birth, my parents documented my first name as Regina and my middle name as Lynette. I didn’t get to choose any part of my name – none of us chooses what’s on our own birth certificates. As a very young child, I loved that my family called me Gina. Later, I learned to love introducing myself as Regina. But I wasn’t much interested in my middle name, Lynette. Then something magical happened during ages five and six, and my middle name had considerable significance to me.

Mommy had a friend who she met through the church my parents joined when I was a toddler. Of all her friends, this one was the most like a sister to her. So she was more like an auntie or godmother to me. I thought her name was absolutely perfect – Lucy Bell. It sounded just as sweet as she was to me.

My earliest memories of being a part of Ms. Bell’s world include the smells of her home – I couldn’t tell you what it was exactly, but it was unique to her and her home and made me feel safe. And she smelled just like her home. As an adult I can guess it was the usual blend of perfumes and/or soaps, hair products, moisturizers, maybe a favorite candy or gum, and she was a smoker. I would breathe her in while I sat next to her at church, wanting to lean on her but knowing somehow that it wasn’t quite appropriate even though I wasn’t really sure why. But she would put her arm on the pew behind me and I would scoot in a little closer to her. Ms. Bell felt like a treat, just in and of herself. And Ms. Bell was mine and I was hers. She made me feel like I was just as much hers as her son was – something that only true mothers, good mothers, natural-born mothers can do.  

I remember visiting her one weekend and she was suddenly pregnant. I was five and I swear she just all of a sudden was pregnant to me. And I was struck, staring at that belly while inching as far across the room away from her as I could. She and Mommy talked and random words floated by my ears – “middle name”, “spell it”, “girl or boy”, “good hair”, and “her daddy”. I know now there were conversations about the unborn baby, my hair, and my middle name. When I heard Ms. Bell say my name, I was snapped out of my stupor and was immediately present. She said to Mommy, “Gina won’t come close to me anymore.” I wondered how she noticed and at the same time I felt sorry that she noticed. Mommy said something about it – I don’t remember – and I was silent for a long time until I was prodded to respond. After I explained that I was afraid she would have the baby while I was close to her, I was assured by both of them that it would never happen that way and that the baby wasn’t due for what seemed like a long time. But I trusted what I saw on sitcoms where women were startled by sudden labor more than I trusted their words of assurance – parents said what they thought you needed to hear and not always the unadulterated truth (like I got from The Jeffersons). Ms. Bell was mine and I was hers and I had hurt her feelings by my distance so I stayed as physically close to her as I could stand but with anxiety. It wasn’t quite close enough to breathe her in nor did I wish I could lean on her.

On another visit I heard more of the conversation around the phrase “good hair” that I remembered hearing my mother and her friend mention. Ms. Bell told my mother that she’d heard that if you rubbed someone’s “good hair” while you were pregnant, your baby would have “good hair”, too. Even at five, I thought that was untrue. I think both Mommy and Ms. Bell thought it was unfounded, but Ms. Bell didn’t want to take any chances in same the way you don’t take any chances with your money by making sure to keep a black-eyed pea in your wallet. It definitely couldn’t hurt anything so whenever we were together, she stroked my plaits and smoothed my scalp. It was okay – we were having our own special moments. And if she could reach my head, I was successfully sparing her feelings while set to run away when labor hit.

Just as the grownups promised, Ms. Bell did the whole labor and childbirth thing outside of my presence and one day there was this tiny little brown baby girl at her house. I remember just staring at her, taking in all her beauty, almost trying to memorize her. Ms. Bell declared us sisters and told me she had given her daughter my middle name to seal the deal. Quietly, along that special gold thread that connected my heart to hers – our middle name, Lynette – I made a six-year old’s sisterly promises to her. Ms. Bell, from that day until the days just before she died, reminded me that I was her daughter’s sister. And her daughter was my sister.

I first embraced Lynette when I saw the importance Ms. Bell put on it by using it to connect two hearts in the same way that nature connected by blood. So I finally learned to spell it and pronounce it correctly. Neither of us sisters chose that name, nor did we know beforehand the significance of that name. But Lynette is like spun gold to me.

My middle name is Lynette. My sister’s middle name is Lynette.