Sarah Rebecca

Sarah Rebecca, my daughter named after my own mother whose advise to me usually started, "The Good Book says.." or  "You can not do wrong just because someone else does wrong." She was named after my grandmother as well whose words were "Never tell a man what you are leaving until you are gone" and "Always keep your FU money in the bank." Sarah is my grandmother, Rebecca, the middle name my daughter shares with my mother.  The order of names was no accident. I thought it best to will her my grandmother's fire tempered by my mother's grace instead of the challenge of always looking for forgiveness for breaking the rules. I believe in the weight of names. My given name Marissa is used outside the family, but the people closest to me call me Mimi, a childhood nickname. Marissa tries to follow the rules, Mimi would rather make a mistake, acts on impuse and will never look back wondering what if because she did. It is a hard life at times, but I hope Sarah will be like that, although I know that being her mother as she lives that kind of life will take a certain amount of patience and a certain amount of wine.

I  semi jokingly tell Sarah that she will definitely need therapy one day being my daughter but she will have great stories to tell at cocktail parties. I say your mother is a feminist, but not the Gloria Steinem kind, more of the Erica Jung mixed with Condelessa Rice, a large dose of Zora Neale  Hurston and equal portions of your namesakes. A Chocolate Elephant, I say who can't wait until her friend Joe can marry his partner, and whose favorite president is Ronald Reagan. I am a smorgasboard of contradictions I warn her. It will sometimes be do as I say not as I did. I have broken a good number of the Commandments with no regret. I am the daugher of an alcoholic raised on constant alert and anxiety. I have no idea how to be like your friends' mothers I tell her. I can make cookies, carpool and french braid your hair, but I am never going to marry your father, I say way too many bad words and I seriously do want you to hire Chippendale dancers for my wake. 

She is more conservative than me although I can see her dipping her toe into rebel waters. I won't let her wear make up or date until she is fifteen, but I bought the fushia hair dye for her she wanted, although she furiously objects to my interest in purple streaks. We argue alot. She can make me madder than anyone else, but I admire my girl's toe to toe verbal combat skills. She will make her way just fine in this world rising up to face the challenge of growing up middle class among alot of McMansions, half-white, half-black, harder on herself than I ever could be. 

Sarah and I make deals and have developed a system for Q &A on hot button issues that sorta of works. She will ask me a question and since we both agree I am not my own best censor I will say, "Do you want Marissa to answer meaning I will pause, sometimes for a while and give her the most Ozzie and Harriet answer possible to her question or do you want Mimi to answer which means her cheeks may turn red and she may wish she had waited until eighth grade health class in some cases, but either way I won't lie to her. Well not anymore, now that we are past Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, things I never had the chance to believe in that I want her to have in her memory as times of wonder and awe. 

She thinks I love her twin brother more. This of course is not true, its just that they are both very much like me, only she is the hell raising side of me, the driven from some place so deep I can't even find it place, the fighter, and stubborn willed side. While her brother has the softer side, the rum and coke let's lounge on the sofa and make up funny stories starring the cat with different accents. Two live wires spark, a negative and a postive make a charge, neither is better, they just look and feel different.  I watch her run 12 miles a week. I watch her get straight A's. I watch her my little social butterfly. I watch her watching me and I try my best to lead her well. My Sarah Rebecca, from me, and more than me. The best of me.