How My Mom Got Her Last Name.

My mom walked into the living room today and told me that my uncle had called her yesterday and said his daughter’s (my cousin’s) husband is dying. He had a heart attack five days ago and while they were able to get a heartbeat back with CPR in the ambulance, it took a long time, and his brain had been without oxygen for about 30 minutes, and he is brain dead. The family will take him off of life support tonight. My cousin and her husband have two kids (a girl, 7, and a boy, 9; the same age as my kids).

My uncle said that the older child was really upset, my mom explained. She said further, with a crushed tone, “he’s the same age as my dad was when his mom died.” It seemed like she somehow knew firsthand all the pain my grandpa had from losing his mom. And then she re-explained to me the intricate family story that I have never been able to remember all the details of:

My grandparents grew up in a small town of 300 people, in Minnesota. My grandma, who died last month at the age of 102, was born in 1921. My grandpa was born in 1923. They got married around 20 years old, and moved to California at some point. They had eight kids. My grandpa never made it past 8th grade, he was in the coast guard, then he was a truck driver, and my grandma stayed home and raised all the kids.

My mom said that when she was growing up, the kids started to notice their dad had different last names (three, to be exact) on papers or mail or when talking to people or whatever. If the kids ever asked about this, their mom (my grandma) would snap, “DON’T, it will upset your father.” Upset, not as in yelling or anger, but as in he was very sensitive about it. No one was allowed to talk about it, ever.

It turns out that my grandpa was “illegitimate,” and his mom had been too.

My mom, continuing the story, walks into the other room and gets a small, framed picture down from the mantle above the fireplace; it’s a picture I have seen a thousand times. It’s black and white, I guess from the very early 1900’s. It’s a family portrait. I should know who these people are, but I can’t remember. I’m not sure but I think they might be related to me somehow, but I can’t remember how.

There are six people in the picture: three standing in a row in the back, and three more sitting in front of them on a little couch. All of them are adults dressed formally, but plainly, in black — except for one smiling little girl in the front and center, who is wearing a white dress and has two giant bows in her hair, and who (as my mom reminds me) was adored and doted on by everyone in the picture (clearly).

My mom points to the little girl. She doesn’t say, “that’s my grandma.” Instead, she looks lovingly at the little girl, but says, “That’s my dad’s mom.” “Ohhh…” I think to myself, “so she is my great-grandma. Why didn’t I know this by now?” My mom points to the old(ish) man sitting next to the little girl, “and that’s her dad (we think).” From her words, it’s more like she is talking about some distant ancestors than her own grandma and great-grandfather, but there is warmth in her voice and eyes because she knows them from their story.

For the first time in my life I realize how proud she is to be related to the family in the picture — the same people I always assumed were marginal relations at best, or, (mostly) flat out strangers. I figured she just inherited this thing and her displaying it was just out of fun or stewardship (she is that person in the family who keeps track of things).

My mom never met any of the people in the picture, they were all dead by the time my grandpa turned 20, starting with his own mother when he was eight.

But the story goes that the old man in the picture, apparently, was married and already had two children (who are both adults in the picture). One day (when his two kids were maybe teenagers), he brought home a baby. Yes, a baby. Like the kind you find on your doorstep. Completely out of the blue, and no one ever got any explanation from him. “We think,” says my mom, “that he had an affair. He never said that, and he never said the baby was his, and no one ever knew the truth, but we think that he really was her father. Anyway, he loved her, so much, they all did, even his wife.”

They raised the baby, this little girl in the picture, like their own. Her two older probably-half-siblings adored her and would do anything for her, as you will see later on. In the picture, the little girl and her older probably-half-sister sit close together, as the older of the two smiles and holds the younger one close, with one arm around her shoulder.

When the little girl grew up, she became pregnant out of wedlock (I get the feeling she was young, maybe 16? or 21?). The father “took off,” but even though we have his name, to this day no one knows where he went or what happened to him. There is no “paper trail” or documentation of him anywhere. She gave the baby his father’s last name on the birth certificate, but changed it at some point to her own last name (my mom guesses this happened “soon after the birth”) for reasons unknown. This baby was my grandpa.

A few years later, she met a man and got married to him, and had two more children with him. She became pregnant again (with what would have been her fourth child), but she died in childbirth, and the baby died too. My grandpa was eight years old.

After his mother’s death, his stepfather (who continued to care for his two children) would not act as as his guardian or take any responsibility for him.

My grandpa was now an orphan.

Thankfully, the old man in the picture (the one who was probably the little girl’s dad)… he took my grandpa in, and cherished him. And the probably-half-sister and her husband (from the picture) were there too… they were my grandpa’s likely-half-aunt-and-uncle. Well, they took care of my grandpa, raised him and loved him dearly too. They even adopted him, and gave him their last name.

My grandpa was brought up in this loving home (which explains why he was so gentle and kind), by his probably-grandfather and his probably-aunt (and her husband, who’s last name is the legacy here). Sadly, the probably-grandfather died, and then the probably-aunt and her husband died too, in my grandpa’s late teen years.

That is how my mom got her last name — the last name of a man she’s not related to. But my grandpa, out of all his last names, chose to keep this one, and to pass it down to his eight kids, and their kids, and theirs. I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure he didn’t have to do that, and I’m pretty sure it meant something to him. Which, I guess, my mom already knew, and that’s why she puts this picture back on the mantle with such care and love.

Hi, I’m Cole. I write about my shadows and light, including my mom’s affair, my affair, my spiritual journey, and, in general, my California life of miracles and other ordinary things. My goal is not perfect writing, but to face the parts of my life and myself that feel un-faceable, and also to document some of the innocuous facts. Thank you, dear reader, for your support.