A Sliver of Your Life
A Sliver of Your Life
(The Names I Had)
(Dec. 21, 2003)
(Part stream of consciousness)
Mother Goose evokes the innocence of childhood, the lilt of rhymes easily committed to memory by many American children.
So far from my childhood in every way…
When our son was born we wanted to give him a name that wouldn’t be shortened. We didn’t want a Richard to become Rick or a Joseph to become Joe. So we named him Craig, confident that he would be called Craig, and no other name.
We never expected that when we sent him to a local summer day camp at age 6, he would come home with an altogether different name. In a children’s game of ball, he was encourage by his counselor to run. “Go Goose, go”, the counselor shouted, referring to Goose Gossage, a popular ball player at that time. That bit of encouragement was a lot more significant than succeeding in a childhood game. The name “Goose” is what my son inherited – and is still called by some of his High School friends,college and law school friends, even today. By default and logic, I became “Mother Goose”. So far from my “unrhymed” and unpredictable childhood in every way…
What is in a name? A sliver of your life…
A whole life’s journey led to “Mother Goose”, and it certainly would surprise people to learn that she started as Gitl Przepiorka, or Gitele, or Chane Gitl.
I don’t know after whom I was named, but it must have been someone good, for “git” or “gut” depending what part of Poland you came from, means good. Life then (the first three years of my life) was the meaning of my name. It was family, mother’s beautiful voice, the smell of leather on my father’s hands. It was hiding under the bed so my big brothers could look for me in a game of hide and seek. It was loving, being loved. And it was being left…Przepiorka, means little bird. That too was suitable, for I was free, and there was singing… Soon the bird had to fly away, not only for the winter, but for all seasons…
Gucia Chanushia,was a strange name, not only in its sound. It was a Polish version of my birth name, without a trace of the dangerous Yiddish. Also, it was paired with a new and foreign last name, Kowalczyk. Everything about that time was strange, unknown, unfamiliar. No more Shabbat or Chanukah. Now there was Christmas, prayers to Matka Boska, pictures of a bleeding man on a cross. Just who was I now? I was no longer free as a “przepiorka” but hidden and restricted. It was a time of missing, pining, and praying. A time of cringing, crying, forgetting. And then…once again, a time of leaving, a time for letting go…
Then came Guta, same as the original meaning of good, but it has a guttural sound, a cold and institutional feeling. An orphanage, long tables, smelly, bony herring. Crowns of candles at Christmas; my first foreign language, of which only one Swedish word “taxi miket” (thank you very much) remains. Long, lonely nights and short, fleeting days in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Again, leaving to… I don’t know where… on a ship…
Gloria sounds Latin, American, glorious. Gloria in Exceslis Deo, the irony of the source of this, the religion that helped me to survive. Still a life with strangers. But a familiar infusion of traditions, -- seders, Purim costumes, synagogue visits, reading the Tanach. Learning languages—English, French, Hebrew, Yiddish. Being a polyglot…. Blossoming, becoming. Drawing, swimming, living in a belated childhood, becoming my own person. Glorious can mean ascent, elevation, dignity. All entered my life here in Montreal. I was renamed, but also reborn, as a Jewishly educated child, with a known future informed by my own, heretofore lost, heritage.)…. Again leaving, grieving. But anticipating revisiting this new family….
Gloria at the last stop, New York. New last name, Bernstein. But real mishpachah…aunt, uncle, and cousins, become Mom, Pop and brothers. Surgically having my eyes straightened; Growing up, becoming American, young adult, college student, teacher. The Holocaust behind me, life ahead of me.
Gloria Glantz: More “becoming”. Becoming a wife, creating, a family. “Glantz” means to shine, to glow…Enjoying motherhood, learning something each new day, revisiting the early storms of my life; reaching the souls of children through my teaching. Writing, revising, giving, and reliving. What is in a name? A sliver of your life.
My life is not glorious, but not inglorious either. I will not stoop to those low depths of my hangmen, but will reach for the unreachable heights. I will not be twisted by hate, but will teach acceptance and respect. I will not always be successful… but it’s all in the striving.
So the life of Gitele informs the life of Mother Goose… I am Gitl, Gucia, Guta, Gloria, Mother Goose. I am good, glorious, full, rhymed and playful… Though nearly gone yesterday, I am here today. I will be here tomorrow--through those I affect today. Therefore, I am a yad vashem, a witness, an everlasting name. I am a voice in the emerging light, the voice of those who cannot speak.
Whatever the name, it is a sliver of my life…Whatever the name, I am a survivor.