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MY NAME
I stared at the papers as tears welled up my eyes,
a powerful, yet stunning turn of events had enveloped my life.
I got my birthright back. I read the words, Shirley Lynn Tardy.
The legal paperwork changing my name from married back to single,
from that name back to my own.
My name.
It is the name my father�s father had and the one my father had until the day he died.
It is the one I was supposed to wear well until my father or uncle walked me down the aisle to the person I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
It is my name the one my mother holds dear as it was the name of he first love and the father of her children. It is the name that now reads on my diploma that I worked so diligently to get, and sits in my safety deposit box like the others.
It is a name, my name that when I go to visit my relatives or to certain towns in the south it is not a question of who am I, just a knowingness that I am James, Luella, Mammie, and Johnny�s granddaughter who is part Jewish, part Creole, part native American, and is a Young-Tardy to my soul.
My name is part of a plantation in Arkansas that my family used to be slaves on, but that we now own, part of a business, a legacy , a tradition that says at age 35 I go back, and continue with the traditions, the legacy, make my own future by honoring the past.
My name, I will never give it up again for it�s value is no longer for sale to another love or lover, and I will never change it again.
My name.
