When a Purposeful Life includes a Name Change
I used to think that my purpose in life was making sure I gifted a meaningful life to my children. Now I see that having four children old enough to think for themselves, offers me a way to rethink my purpose in life.
Purpose.
Yesterday I had an opportunity to experience the same word from my two oldest boys, in completely different ways…but it made think about life in general and the meaning of purpose.
Purpose.
In search of Hanukkah gifts for my 23 year old son who doesn’t seem to want or need much, I was lead to Amazon and endless kinds of coffee k-cups. He does love coffee. Who doesn’t? But I needed to narrow the search about his coffee drinking.
“How about a Starbucks coffee that has 2x the caffeine?” I asked in a text.
“Perfect,” he wrote.
“It’s a medium roast, though, with twice the caffeine. But you usually drink it strong? So…do you fancy flavor or purpose?”
“Haha definitely more a purpose guy,” he added. I do love when he thinks I’m funny.
I was glad we were texting because it gave me needed time to think. I wondered if I knew that about him and then realized there were many things I had been learning about him in the past year that I hadn’t known before. Maybe that he hadn’t know before either. I then left him with my famous mother quote of the moment.
“Better to live life with purpose for sure.”
That night, after that same son asked me about the name change his brother was about to undertake with his new bride, the word came up again. This time, it was from a post my 26 year old had written on his wedding registry page. While I had known about his name change plan, somehow seeing it written the way he did, left me feeling overloaded with joy. I felt such pride and wondered if I had my yearning for purpose and happiness in life had been quietly leaking onto him as he created such depth in his thinking. Or was it the other way around?
Engagement pictures
I have been seeking the pursuit of happiness intentionally for about 15 years. The awakening began around the same time I decided to become a Business/Life Coach. Not a coincidence. I was in the midst of leaving a peaceful, loving, and functional marriage and about to embark on living as a part- time single mother. I had a fear list that was too large to look at, guilt and shame in not being able to make it work, and an intuition that something deep in my heart was missing. A missing that outweighed my fears and lead me on a search for my true purpose, which would create a whirlwind of changes.
Among the changes was my last name. While I have changed it more times than I care to count, each time felt filled with purpose. And by purpose I simply mean, I could justify it.
I changed my last name in high school to align with my Step-Father who had been caring and loving me like his own since the age of 5. I changed it again when I married my college sweetheart who was sure to be my forever-after. I changed it again when my ex-husbands’ new step daughter told me I shouldn’t have that name because it was her mother’s name now. I changed it again when I attempted marriage number two…and that is just to name a few.
Each time, I felt certain about the change and could justify it, but I certainly never thought about it aligning with my purpose. Some of the changes felt expected. Others were to prove my strength. And perhaps at least once it was to disprove my fears.
My mama used to say, “Happiness is an inside job.”
My mom, with my son Shane at about 6 months old.
Remembering that now makes me wonder why so much of my life was spent making others feel more comfortable, or attempting to set the record straight. Why couldn’t happiness and purpose simply come from the happiness I felt inside?
I don’t know, but I keep thinking. I suppose we could argue that our purpose in doing something is simply our reason why…but a purposeful life. feels so much bigger than that. For me, a purposeful life is about living with intention. Living in a way that is aligned, inside and out and speaking in a way that is true to myself. It is about living a life that makes a difference, to me and everyone around me. It is one that matters.
Not just for today, but for tomorrow and the next day too. Even for the day when I am no longer here.
I continued thinking about this when I read what my oldest son wrote in describing his new family name choice.
“A New Family, and a New Name”
Most often, when two people get married, they take the man's last name. But if you've met Shane and Colleen, you probably know that “everyone else is doing it” isn't usually a very compelling argument for them. So, as they're prone to do, they started thinking.
Family names help us tell our stories and forge our identities. They connect us to our ancestors, but also to our siblings. And Shane and Colleen's stories have a lot of family names. Moore, Higgins, Geller, Morrow, Kerner, Gibbons, Parker, the list is practically endless. These names have a power to them; they invoke feelings of love and solidarity.
Some family names have sadness, too. Sometimes they remind us of those we love that are no longer with us. Sometimes names change, and sometimes they vanish altogether. Because women often take the names of their husbands, their family names can be lost. And sometimes names are lost for other reasons, like immigration and assimilation.
Like we said, lots of thinking.
Shane and Colleen spent a lot of time thinking about lost names. They thought about other naming traditions, too, like the Ashkenazi tradition of naming new family members after those that had recently passed away. They thought about Shane's grandmother, Elinor Geller, who recently passed away, and her mother, Ruth Friedman, who died when Shane was young. And they thought about the name Friedman, an Ashkenazi name that means “one of peace”.
Soon, there will be a new family. It will join the Moores, the Higginses, Gellers and Morrows, Salvatos and Parkers. And it will have a new name.
Friedman.”
Ruth Friedman, my grandmother, my friend
Family names help us tell our stories and forge our identities. I just love that and honestly never gave it any thought before I saw his writing. Yet now makes me wonder how something so obvious could have been so overlooked. It feels comical now for me to think about the time I’ve spent thinking about last names, while they have spent meaningful time thinking about lost names.
That right there is how we create a life by design. One that is thoughtful, purposeful and meaningful. And while it is a grand gesture to honor the legacy of my mama who lost her battle to Pancreatic Cancer just 5 years ago, it’s really the icing on the cake of two beautiful young people that have come together with a yearning for a life that matters. That will begin with a new family, merging all their families together, with a name that was once lost. And now has been found.
It continues to make me think about being a proclaimed ‘purposeful guy’ at age 23, or choosing a name ‘of peace’ at 26 and the ability to reclaim a purposeful life at any time. If we choose…