If I were a side dish of purple top turnips at Thanksgiving feast, guests would know what to do with me.
Their memory would recall the taste experienced; what they summoned up would have them scoop up a spoonful or pass the bowl along.
Little girls are not root vegetables and should never be considered a “secondary culinary accompaniment to complement and balance a main meal” – they are complete banquets of beliefs, hopes and dreams.
Born to parents, unable to cope with their own lives, mine got caught in the powerful riptide of alcoholism; leading to surges of panic and uncertainty in a toddler when they started to fight. I was too young to assign words to my feelings – I just knew the upheaval felt bad in my body and made me cry.
One argument when I was two grew so loud, they had neighbors calling help for me – social workers intervened and I was planted in the orphanage system with my birth name – Leona Nell.
Being suddenly uprooted from my family was disorienting, but children of alcoholics learn early that no matter what – dry tears fast and smile big.
I found the same defenses useful in my new current “home”.
The 1950s orphanage, in a rural area of Indiana, where I spent the next four years of my life, was drafty cold in winter and stuffy hot in summer – and decidedly morose.
Most of the staff were harried, short-tempered, and cuddling and coddling was not part of their main job – it was finding willing foster homes, and hopefully, adoptive parents.
A few workers had softer natures, and wanted to be kind, but time was not on their side – nor mine. Simply too many little ones to care for, so tenderness came in spurts.
Disruptive circumstances can bring out the inner strength of a person, or they can drown them in defeat. At two years of age-going on three; without knowingly, choose to draw on my inner muscle.
I became the personification of a sunbeam spreading rays of outward joy.
No matter the tempest brought to my friends or myself, I showed my dorm mates by example how to choose bright light of smiles to confront storms, rather than dark floods of tears.
They learned if a small, pug-nosed face – white-blond hair sticking straight up in the air – like I rubbed my head on a rug – came towards you, a talk was in store-with the few word I knew: how tears would slurp water from your body and dry you up like a prune.
Not one of us liked prunes.
Nelly became my nickname and it suited me just fine. Sounded like a happy name and fell softly on my ears. Leona, a lovely sounding name, was a melody waiting for me to grow up…
I imagined I would be oh, so pretty and elegant, soft blonde hair swirling around my face…
There was a “special” room in the orphanage that just thinking about created tense electrical like sparks in the atmosphere of the dorm rooms. If you were told to bundle up belongings and come along, you knew uprooting life changes were happening again.
The day I was told to come along – it was the last time I was called Nelly or Leona – for fifty-eight years.
My adoptive parents thought it would be a grand idea to start me off fresh with a new name. The great brainstorm caused decades of squalls to survive, and I hadn’t learned to swim.
When “Patricia” (or Patty) became the selected identity for me – sunshine turned cloudy and darkened with clouds of confusion; the name, awkward to hear spoken – not like the soft and mysterious melody of Leona Nell, was difficult for me to hear and compose a reply.
At six, I knew my name – loved it – and much like a puppy – responded to it when called.
Exchanging my birth name with a substitution I did not embrace, or understand the why of, introduced far-reaching complications for me from the very start – other than absorbing a name change.
My older friends at the orphanage were the first to see an opportunity for fun – not in mean way, just as children are wont to do – immediately started to chant:
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man
Bake me a cake as fast as you can
Pat it and prick it and mark it with a “B”
Put in the oven for baby and me” …
Because I had left childhood behind that Wednesday afternoon; I too, left giggling friends in the wake; getting into a car with new “parents” – tears sliding down a sad and disoriented pug-nosed face.
In due course, the new “parents” enrolled me in kindergarten – big trouble for this little girl.
Back then, adult explanations to children for most anything; including great serious matters, was not the regular thing to do. It was more – do as I say – not as I do – and like it.
Moreover, no helpful (critical) information about my history was relayed to my new schoolteacher. Her class roster labeled seat number seven, row two – as new student Patricia, or Patty if you please.
I hated Patty more than Patricia.
The school bell clanged to signal the beginning of class; horror unfolded in the first two minutes.
I sat in my seat, eyes cast down, doing my best to be invisible, when from behind me a tap to my head gained my attention.
“Patricia! We answer when called, do you understand?”, Miss. Frost barked.
“Yes, Miss. Frost,” Patricia said. But Nelly really didn’t know. What had she done?
Another head tap, a little sharper this time, slapped the back of my head – Miss. Frost set her glare on me; a small wind of knowing blew through my mind – she was calling out that Patricia name – not mine.
Oh, wait – Leona Nell is Patricia/Patty now.
It didn’t go any better for the rest of the first week. In fact, I made kindergarten history by being expelled on day four – age six. I was NOT to return to class until I stopped giving Miss. Frost drop dead looks, answered her in a timely fashion – with respect.
Labeled incorrigible my first week in the new school carried secondary consequences throughout my growing years – I met the challenge of being irredeemable, and it set the stage for much heartbreak and loneliness in my life.
Problematic childhood roads do not always crash and burn or conclude at a dead end. The story can have an affirmative completion when remedies are sought.
I unadopted myself when I turned forty-one, though a lengthy and costly legal procedure and sustained bullying from adopted parents and their family members. I knew the surface damage I would cause to them when I started the legal process; the cost was worth it to me, and if they couldn’t connect “unadopted” to negative connotations – well that explains everything.
While I knew, and my friends knew, I was Leona Nell. It took much longer for Patricia/Patty to sink into a deep pool of never being anything bound to me.
It is interesting to note, a non-adopted person wishing a name change – no problem, they can make up any name they want and presto – it’s theirs with minor amounts of legal paperwork.
My birth name change was ordered by the adoption courts – and to revert, I needed court approval. That turned into simple to say – not so much to do.
Indiana said New Jersey held my history – New Jersey said Indiana stored it. It took years to assemble documents available, and I certainly could not retrieve them all. Laws and rules regarding my having my own history, were convoluted at best, and held secret – in an old chest of history gold, at the bottom of genealogical sea.
I have no idea what my nationality is; that search remains a part time hobby to discover.
Retrieving Leona Nell officially became a match of wills; me – the courts – and the judge.
Much to the consternation of the courts and family court judge, I bought a Black’s Law Dictionary, took an online course in Criminal Justice – and filled Pro se.
Waiting outside Court Room 702, on beautiful, polished wood benches hard as rocks; I sat waiting on ripples of nerves, to be called to the dais and learn my birth name’s fate.
I was familiar with this room, spent a lot of time there. The space felt different that day – charged with invisible fingers of electricity. And the judge – he had a tiny lopsided grin.
This is what he ordered:
Miss, as of today, you can call yourself Royale Blue Bubblegum, if that is what you choose – and like a library book stamped “signed out”, the stern black robed judge, set a gold seal on the document of name change – Approved.
Many purposeful years, of hounding the same legal system every few months with few legal documents I managed to assemble, alongside my multitude of filed motions – a win was achieved.
Leona Nell is my name – I am not a side dish of purple top turnips to be served about – nor will I allow it.
-Leika
*Author note: This short story contest entry.