Buhay Bangkok

What’s in a name? A lot. Notwithstanding Shakespeare’s “A rose by any other name is still a rose,” your name makes you special (even if you carry a common one like Michael [in my two years of teaching at Perpetual Help College in Laguna, I had a dozen or so students with that name] or de la Cruz. It gives you a sense of identity, though I wouldn’t go so far as agreeing with the claim that “You are what your name is.”

I had this thought just as our second daughter was born on May 12. My wife had fervent hopes of bestowing upon her at least two first names (wait, don’t you think this is a misnomer? It should read “at least one first name and a second name?” Hmm…) and except for the name Sophia, we can not come up with another one we can agree on. So we ended up naming our second daughter, “Sophia.” Fine by me. It’s my wife’s choice. To make up for it, it was my turn to give her a nickname, Pia. There, I guess that’s fair now.

 

We found coming up with only one first name for our new baby amusing because our two older kids have multiple names. With some background stories to boot.

 

Take our eldest child, Paulo. His full name is Juan Paulo Gabriel. Whoah! So Spanish-sounding…till you get to his family name, which sounds so Malay. What is this? Are we trying to compensate for something? Are we doing our best to style ourselves after our former colonial masters?

 

Anyway, here’s the story:

 

My wife Lizl only got pregnant a year after our wedding. In those 12 months, we were getting concerned that there might be something wrong with one of us. Parents from both sides were eagerly waiting for the good news. But month after month passed without any news from the stork.

 

Then one day, somebody knocked on our door. When Lizl opened it, there was a little girl, around three years old, standing in our doorway. We recognized her as one of the neighborhood kids playing in the street. After greeting her, Lizl was surprised by what the child told her: “May tababy dyan,” pointing to my wife’s tummy. Lizl laughed. “Walang baby dyan, iha.” But the girl insisted: “May tababy dyan.”

 

This exchange was repeated almost every day for the next weeks. This chubby little girl would knock, Lizl would open the door, announce her message and leave.

 

Less than a month later, Lizl felt something funny and bought a pregnancy test kit. It tested positive. Without telling me, she went to her OB-Gyne, had another test, and only then was she able to say with confidence that, indeed, the much-awaited “tababy” has arrived.

 

A few days later, we were leaving our house when we saw the chubby little girl playing in the street. We have missed her as she has not paid us a visit for quite sometime. Lizl approached her and said hello. Imagine our surprise when the little girl appeared not to recognize her. My wife tried a few times to remind her that we know her, but she just stared at us like we were complete strangers.

 

Was there something supernatural going on here? First, the girl out of the blue gave her prediction, which was later confirmed to be true, then promptly forgot about us. As if she just performed a task and after doing it, returned to her normal life.

 

Did the angel Gabriel drop by our home disguised as a cute little girl to deliver the good news to us?

 

Perhaps.

 

That’s why we were inspired to name our first-born Gabriel.