Lost: One Identity (Reward If Found!)

As a child, I felt that my last name was a hindrance.  To be named "Rebecca Lynn Thielet" was a tragedy among tragedies.  Already I was too smart, too chunky and too quiet.  Like salt in a wound was my gnarled surname.  It was foreign, barely pronounceable, and it didn't mean anything.  I received every possible variant one could imagine: "thigh-LETT", "TEE-lit", "thuh-LAY", "THILT", and, the charming "toy-LETTE".  Early on I had grown accustomed to waiting until the alphabet had dwindled during role call, and simply announcing "Thielet" once the teacher mentioned my first name.  Teachers were always smilingly grateful, but I was getting annoyed.  I paved the way for my younger sister, at least in that aspect, and she never got the mumbled massacres that I suffered.  Though the name itself is of French origin (my paternal grandfather was from Belgium), my mother joked that we were gypsies.  In our blood, at least on her side, was mingled German, Czech, Yugoslavian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Slovakian and possibly Serbian heritage.  French and Italian came from my father.  True Heinz 57s, Mom would say, referring to Pittsburgh's own nickname for its mixed bag of nationalities.

I, of course, got the prominently Polish features: pale skin, wavy mouse-brown hair, meaty thighs and hips that will have no challenge bearing infants.  

Great.

Later in life, in college in fact, I began to become more interested in my family name.  Why hadn't I met other Thielets?  The more I learned about my family, the more fascinated I became.  My mother's side was a convoluted but torrid tale of deserted wives, horse thieves and genuine Gypsy blood.  My father's story, though simpler, was somehow more engaging.  Nine of them - only three speaking English, and all but two women - came to America from a tiny town on the French-Belgian border called Espinoley-Binche.  They were meeting their patriarch, who had settled in Cecil, Pennsylvania.  The one who intrigued me the most was Marguerite.  She was 22 when she came to this country in 1903 - that's the same age I was when I first learned about her.  She already had three children (one of whom died once the family reached America).  I never did learn a whole lot more about her, but I learned that her father was my great-grandfather.  We are the only Thielet family in America.  In fact, there are very few Thielets outside of America.  I've done my research.  Every Thielet you will ever meet is related to me by blood or marriage.

   

My mother's maiden name, Kuskil, is rare as well.  Far back in her lineage was a genuine Hungarian royal: Francis II Rákóczi.  My great-grandfather on her side changed the name when he came to America, but not, like many immigrants, to make it easier to pronounce.  Seems he got into trouble with the law once he'd established himself in this country, and changed his name to avoid being found by local authorities.  Shady.  But it made me - and my lineage - quite unique.

When I learned that, I gained a new appreciation for my name  and my family.    I took to going by my last name in college and beyond.  Nicknames included T-Bird, T-Lo, T-Dizzle and T-Love.  I loved it.

Then I met Ross, whose last name has an appeal all its own. 

In fact, when I first saw Ross's full name on his facebook profile, I figured it was a joke.  Really?  A Christian whose name is Godlove?  Too much.  But it's true.  German.  Just got translated into English when this family came to America well before the Civil War.  

Although I love my new name (and the family that goes with it), I am struggling to find a part of myself again.  I have so deeply identified with my last name that even now,after college and after marriage, I respond to it without thinking.  I was the only Becky Thielet.  The only one on myspace, on facebook, in Pittsburgh, in the United States.  To my dismay, however, there are several Rebecca Godloves.  Even another Rebecca Lynn Godlove.  I know I am still a unique person, and chances are good, things being the ironically sad way they are, that I am the only Rebecca Godlove with a vested interest in the things of God.

I remember reminding God once, in that smarmy way we sometimes get, that I had grown so fond of my last name that He'd best arrange for me to be able to take the name of a guy with a REALLY COOL one.

Thanks, God, for delivering - as you always do.  Now, Lord, help me find my identity not in my past, but in my new name - and in you.