TheBanyanTree: A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

[Sharon Mack]

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

When I was fifteen my father, who worked for the military, was transferred.  That meant that the whole family was transferred.  We moved from a tired little farm town in Midwestern Ohio to a growing small town of the Baltimore suburbs.  It was like night and day. Nothing was the same.  My insecurities came out in welts and silent screams.  My approval addiction suffered a severe setback and I needed a fix badly.  A rebellious spirit began to grow.  It was very small at first, showing itself only in the silence of my mind and subtle anger, but would later go into full-blown rebellion.

I decided, as my first act of rebellion, to change my name.  Instead of Sharon, it would be Shari.  That was cool, right?  Well, cooler than Sharon anyway!  Or so I thought.

All through high school I kept the nickname.  My parents' chagrin showed through in their eyes but they accepted it.  My younger brothers and sisters thought I was weird. Every time there was a phone call, my mother gave me the look, "Miss SHARI, you have a phone call."  Her eyes would glare at me, but I held fast.  My father would just rustle his newspaper.  He never said a word.

When graduation day came around, I even contemplated having them put "Shari" on my diploma.  I mentioned it at the breakfast table one Saturday morning.  My father looked over his cup of coffee and sighed.  He looked a little sad around the eyes.  He abruptly got up and left the table.

"What's up with him?"  I callously asked my mother.

And then she told me.

Told me that when she became pregnant with me, the only thing my father could talk about was how much he wanted a little girl.  He'd had two sons by a first marriage and this time he wanted a girl.  Apparently he poured over names and tried many on for size.  We had a big last name so he wanted it to be just right!

When I was born and it turned out I was the little girl he had hoped for, he turned to the Bible for the name he would choose for me.  He chose Sharon from Song of Solomon, The Rose of Sharon.  Christ, himself was likened to the Rose of Sharon because of their beauty.  It was a very special name and he chose it as a gift for me and I had taken it and treated it shabbily, cheaply.  My mother had tears in her eyes.  She said, "You have no idea how much you hurt your father!  He gave you that name because in his eyes you were a rose*the most beautiful child in the world.  He was crazy with love for you.  You were our love-child."

I felt horrible.  That day I made a decision.  I think it was one of the first adult decisions I had ever made.  It would be a long time before I made another, but from that day forward, I went back to MY name.  The name my father had chosen for me**. Sharon.  I have never deviated from it since.  I still get called Shari on occasion by a few of my old acquaintances but it is difficult to hear.  Sometimes it takes me a minute to realize they are talking to me and then I remember my terrible mistake.

I love my name now, especially the Hebrew pronunciation, although I seldom hear it said that way.  Sometimes a rose by any other name is not recognizable.  I know now how important a name can be.

Sharon Atherholt Mack