< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
This is a family matter, of sorts, so if you want to skip this and move on to discourses about relevant matters of public import, no one will blame you. There's only so much time on a Sunday, and we have nuclear waste shipments, a war in Yugoslavia and a dozen people running for the presidency.
As you may know, Martha and I have two daughters, both now in college. The younger one is named Abigail and goes by Abby, and seems to like her name just fine.
Our older daughter has one of those offbeat names that hippie parents sometimes inflict on their children. Even so, she managed with it until the events of April 20. Her name is Columbine.
Naming children is one of those parental decisions I had
hoped to avoid by having a son whom I could christen
Edward Kenneth Quillen IV.
That never happened, and
so decisions had to be made back in 1975.
It isn't easy. You've got a defenseless newborn child, and you're putting a name on it -- a name that can affect the grades your child gets in school, the child's social standing in the American caste system, your child's self-image.
There are names you like the sound of, but they're associated with people you don't. You may even like the people, but not enough to have them think you named your children after them. Other names that sound attractive turn out to have dreadful meanings -- it's a tough job.
We lived in Kremmling then. Kremmling seemed like a pretty obscure place, but an old-timer told us that Zane Grey had set one of his westerns in the Kremmling area.
Naturally, we had to find the book -- The Mysterious
Rider
-- and we read that its heroine was named
Columbine.
Since that's the official state flower, it was a familiar word, but we'd never thought of it as a name before. We mulled it over, and decided that if this baby turned out to be a girl (in those days, you waited until delivery for such information), then we'd name her Columbine.
It seemed apt in many ways. To some degree, we were
flower children
who had escaped to the mountains of
Colorado, and the columbine is the archetypal Colorado
mountain flower. Its Latin roots mean dovelike
(one
part of the flower supposedly resembles a dove), and the
dove is the symbol of peace. And it was the name of the
heroine in the only novel ever set in Kremmling, where she
was born.
Even better, it wasn't one of those Moon Child of the
River
constructions often seen in little mountain
towns. It was even listed in a couple of those Name
your baby
books. So we weren't stepping too far from
the customary bounds of acceptable nomenclature.
Since the name is a mouthful, we figured that a nickname
might evolve -- perhaps Colly,
like the heroine of
the book. But she always preferred the full Columbine,
even though it meant some teasing in junior high and high
school.
Once Martha started planting flowers around the yard,
the name could lead to some domestic confusion, which we
solved by referring to the botanic columbine as a
culverwort,
an archaic term for the state
flower.
And when that daughter was introduced, people would
often comment, My, what a pretty name.
Until April 20, anyway. Whenever I hear a phrase like
hatred produces a Columbine
or the Columbine
tragedy,
my paternal instincts take over and I want to
shout to the world that Columbine isn't a tragedy.
She's an intelligent and energetic young woman, an honor
student who speaks three languages. Find some other name
for this horror.
In conversation, I've begun referring to the massacre
site as Stateflower High School.
Otherwise, I feel
as though we named her something like Chernobyl
or
Wounded Knee.
Last week, I asked her how she'd been handling it.
For the first time in my life, I'm embarrassed to
give out my name,
she said. Always before, people
might have thought my name was a little weird, and if I
wasn't in Colorado, I'd need to explain that it was the
state flower back home in the mountains.
But now, when I say my name, people act like I'm
trying to play some sick joke them, like I made it up just
to see the horrified look on their faces.
The main reason for our conversation last week, though, was to continue making arrangements to attend her graduation from Western State College in Gunnison on May 8.
Since I'm a world-class slob, Columbine was concerned that I'd show up in dirty T-shirt and faded blue-jeans -- one parental duty that I perform quite well is embarrassing my children -- and she made some suggestions.
But despite my assurances to her about appropriate
attire, I'm giving serious thought to wearing a T-shirt --
one I saw on TV the other night. A man was wearing it at
Clement Park, and it said Proud Columbine
Parent.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1999 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >