Several years ago I asked my parents why they named me Renee. I’m not French. I don’t enjoy the way rehn-AY rolls off the tongue—iambic, when all my friends have trochaic names: EM-ma, LAU-ren, AN-na, A-my, BRY-an, AN-drew.
My parents’ answer punched me in the gut. Your first name is your grandmother’s, and your middle name means “reborn.” You are your grandmother, reborn.
To be named after my grandmother was a high enough charge, but to be named her reincarnation—this was an unimaginable charge. For one, she survived the Japanese invasion of her homeland when she was only thirteen. For another, she married my grandfather, an austere man who was away on military campaigns for most of their married life. They emigrated to a strange new world called America in the 60s, where she raised four children—three girls and one boy—by herself. She had no driver’s license until her mid-thirties, no formal education, and no family nearby. She was a homemaker, constantly packing up her family and moving to the next American city that the US Navy dictated. Her life allowed her little time and few resources to spend on herself, so she did what all homemakers do: provide for and nourish others.
She’s been my hero for my entire life, a matriarch of strength and poise. And I am her namesake? I am the “rebirth” of this incredible woman? I felt—and often still feel—unworthy.
I’m a lot like my grandmother. I share her large brown eyes and her short stature. I enjoy singing the old hymns and tending after my many houseplants and flowerbeds. My favorite flower, and hers, is the orchid, and overdramatized crime shows are our guilty pleasure. A steak and cheese taco from White Duck Taco Shop makes us both weep with joy. But where my grandmother computed numbers in her head with ease, I struggle with basic probability exercises. Where my grandmother fashioned entire wardrobes for her children by hand, I can barely pick out clothing in stores that flatters my small frame. Her language was numbers; mine is poetry.
When I was a freshman in college, my hero passed away. After her death, I wrote poem after poem, because that was the only way I knew to process the grief. I wrote about the numbness of mourning, about wishing I could have taken all my grandmother’s suffering on myself. Mostly I discussed unworthiness. I didn’t want her name anymore.
These last three years have passed like southern snow—gone with a breath. I still have my grandmother’s name. And I am still writing poems. This year I was published in an anthology for the first time. And only this year did I realize that my parents never intended for me to feel inadequate. I wasn’t born to be a second incarnation of my grandmother. I was born to be myself, to seek God, and to utilize the talent He gave me, which isn’t numbers or needlework. My grandmother’s name gives me a distinct privilege: the opportunity to remember a remarkable woman, to celebrate her life, and to honor her legacy through my own. I am writing poems about redemption now. Sweet songs about light after rain.