Baby, Remember My Name
There was a TV show, FAME that ran from 1982-1987. The music was catchy, and the talent was fabulous. All these young people who could act, dance, sing. Each episode was so enjoyable. The theme song has always stuck in my mind. At the end it says, “Im gonna live forever, baby remember my name! Whose name is remembered forever? Certainly we have Biblical names, we have ancient civilization names, we have middle ages names etc. But what about all of us who are neither entertainers who delight millions, or world leaders? Who remembers our names?
When I was 4 and about to go to my first day of Kindergarten, my mother got me all dressed up, I even remember the dress I wore. She brought me across the hall to my grandparents apartment to show me off. My grandfather was sitting in his normal place reading the newspaper, and my grandmother was still in her bed. My grandparents didn’t speak English, maybe a word or two. To me, Grandma looked normal. I know she responded when she saw me. I was so excited, I was going to school! I left their apartment, never to see my Grandma again.
Apparently, she died shortly after in a hospital from the complications of diabetes. I was told she also had dementia. My Grandfather, died two months after her, he just stopped eating once she was gone.
I really never had much to do with them. They were elderly, couldn’t really speak to me, but I do remember Grandma teaching me to shoot walnuts, like marbles, and playing a card game. Grandpa never played, but I would sit on his lap while he read the newspaper. It wasn’t written in English.
I remember their names, and I remember little tiny bits and pieces of them. I have their pictures, but no one will remember them once I am gone.
It was that feeling, that empty feeling, that haunted me, it is if they never existed. Their deaths were kept away from me. No one took the time to explain death, it was just here today and gone tomorrow. I can’t remember the first time I was taken to the cemetery. I thought I was going to visit Grandma and Grandpa, not a stone in the ground. It upset me greatly. One day they were here, the next they were gone.
No other deaths occurred in my family for quite a while. Then, it seemed like a flurry of people dying. It too bothered me that no one after me would remember their names. I did buy a plaque to put on the wall of the Statue of Liberty for my father.
Of course, at this point of life, practically all my relatives are gone. My cousin Ellen on one side and my cousin William on the other are the only two left out of this huge immigrant family. We are all within one year of age of each other. I know there are relatives I’ve never met, a load of them live in New Jersey. Through sites like Geni and Heritage, I know their names, but unless I am looking for them I don’t remember who they are.
Sometimes something special happens. Last year my husband was reading an article on his IPad. He doesn’t know how he found it, but he noticed our last name which is very unusual. Since my husband has more than 250 musical publications, he assumed it was about him. He continued to read and it was about me!
One of my original students, from a first grade class, way back then, had written an article about seeing a poster in the subway. I don’t remember the exact wording but it asked something about, “do you remember your first grade teacher?” He did, and that made him switch the direction of his life into a career in education. He has become quite a celebrity teaching others how to teach reading.
I was dumbfounded! There was a little boy, now grown up, who had no relationship to me other than I taught him to read! He remembered my name! How cool is that! OK, it’s not immortality, but it made me feel better! As he goes on, and the people who he teach go on, it’s a little piece of me that made a difference.
Perhaps it was one of the hidden motivations to start writing now in my 70’s. Yes, it was primarily boredom and the confinement of Covid, but I think, I just wanted to be remembered, albeit just for a little bit longer.
