Names

I was thinking today about when and why John first started to call me "Little Bear." My oldest brother was named after our father, Ed, but our mother didn't want to call him Ed because she foresaw confusion as he grew and started to have friends calling him on the telephone. She insisted that he needed a different nickname from the beginning and she didn't want to call him Junior. So, my brother Edward became Ted. Ted rapidly became Teddy, then Teddy Bear. My sister insisted he couldn't be Teddy Bare, that he must be Teddy Dressed. This discussion about his name continued for years. As teenagers, Ted started calling the rest of us kids by our name followed by the word Bear, probably to protest the continuation of Teddy Bear. Karen became Karen Bear and I was Mary Bear. Karen started referring to Ted's best friend (Neil) as Neil Baby. Both Ted and Neil always used the Bear names in retaliation. John had heard all of the "Bear" names and noted that I was the youngest Bear. So he started to call me Little Bear. I felt it was somewhat condescending as it was often accompanied by a pat on the head, but he could not be dissuaded. The patting stopped when I repeatedly tried to bite him. After all, real bears bite anyone who pats them. He ceased the patting (for the most part) but continued with the name.

John had named himself Zeke. I was never that fond of the name Zeke. It is ironic, as I ultimately became an archaeologist who looked for graves ("Ezekial cried, "Them dry bones"; Ezekial cried, "Them dry bones." Ezekial cried, "Them dry bones; Now hear the Word of the Lord. The foot bone's connected to the leg bone. The leg bone's connected to the knee bone. The knee bone's connected to the thigh bone.... " This is practically the theme song for grave-seeking archaeologists!).  John was tall and skinny, a little too skeletal for me to want to call him that. It thought it was disrespectful, even though he wanted to be called Zeke at the time.

I named our son for the same reason why my mother named my brother after his father, but like my mother, I wanted him to have a different nickname. Jack became a popular name for baby boys a few years later, after the release of "Titanic" but I named Jack after his great grandfather, who shared the nickname and who died a few years before my son was born.

During our divorce, I didn't want John to call me Little Bear any longer. It felt like he was trying to maintain a pet name after our intimate relationship ended; it annoyed me beyond all measure and seemed completely inappropriate. I don't feel that way any longer. Enough time has passed that I was able to remember that the name had its origins long before we became intimate, so it no longer feels inappropriate. It is, once again, just his special name for me, one of his best friends from a difficult time in both of our lives.