LLinda:
Of course I would pick my name first. It's the thing I know best. Me. It's not that it's all about me; it's just that I'm warming up to the encyclopedia assignment we were given in my creative nonfiction writing class. Linda is a name I've never liked, but then, are there really many people who actually like their own name? After I realized my dad named me, I liked it a lot better. After all, someone who loves me actually put some thought into me, took the time to name me, and after I was born, spent large portions of his day thinking about me and caring for me. Now that's got to mean something. It does. Linda is my name. I'm okay with that.
Love:
It's an obvious one, so I won't pass it up. There are many different kinds of love. You can love, and you can be loved. Some might argue that love can be passive or active in that you can be loved without loving, but when you are loved, it's pretty difficult to remain passive because being loved will change you, even if it's in different ways than actively loving someone will change you. You can think about that on your own. It will probably mean something different for everyone. Basically, love is what happens when you open your heart. If it's not synonymous with pain, it should be, but then to be fair, we'd have to list many other synonyms for it as well. Many types of synonyms come to mind for me. Joy, warmth, ecstasy, peace, and fulfillment are a few easy ones just off the top of my head. You can fill in your own. Suffice it to say that love encompasses many emotions, and as the saying goes, you haven't really lived until you've loved and been loved.
Lois:
My mother's name is Lois. Her fun-loving nature was so much a part of my childhood that all of my friends remember it too.
At my sixteenth birthday party, I had a sleep-over with some of my girlfriends. We did all the usual things girls do at parties, including trying to scare ourselves by having a seance and telling ghost stories. We giggled into the middle of the night, but none of us were truly frightened until we heard the thumping on the living room window where we were all camped out with our sleeping bags and pillows.
We sat straight up in unison. We got goose bumps as a group, and reached for each other in perfect choreography that couldn't have been executed any better if we'd practiced for weeks. Movement outside the window caused the screams we'd held in our throats to pierce the air like an out-of-tune symphony. The pale-faced persona seemed to have wings that kept it hovering in the inky black night. It drifted backwards, and then, as if it was building up steam, it zoomed forward and attacked the window.
The girls, who had been huddled together, now scrambled in a run-for-your-lives mentality. They screeched at the top of their lungs for help, and ran for some unknown point of safety at the back of the house.
I, however, was getting wise right about then. Something was fishy. The evil presence that loomed in the dark night with an effervescent glow of white had a strange resemblance to the white sheets my mother kept in the rag closet. We'd used old sheets like that for drop cloths when we'd painted my room last year, and if what I saw was correct, there were paint splatters on the ghost's midsection that looked suspiciously like a footprint. My footprint to be exact. I'd stepped on a paint can lid and the yellow paint had covered enough of my foot to leave a print of all five toes, the sole of my foot past my arch, and half of my heel.
"Mother!" I yelled.
I turned to my quivering friends and tried to convince them that my mother was behind all of this, but they weren't buying it.
The ghost thumped dramatically on the window one last time before ascending straight up to disappear into what I knew was the bedroom window directly above the living room. I listened closely. The window above me slid closed with a recognizable swish and a quiet but telling thud, and someone was attempting to contain hysterical laughter.
Mother."It was my mother," I said.
My friends didn't believe me until my mother appeared beside me with a sheepish grin and a broom that was dressed in a sheet, tied with a rope below the straw to give the appearance of a head and neck. The now deflated ghost sported a yellow footprint on its belly.
My mother had braced her body on the window sill of my sister's bedroom, leaned out into the darkness of the night grasping the stick of the broom, and allowed the sheet to dangle from the straw head beneath her.
The girls were shocked, but quickly recovered, and pronounced my mother the most "awesome mom ever." The mini-trauma left them pleasantly terrorized, and my sixteenth birthday party was remembered for years after that.
And so, it comes as no surprise when I say that I, Linda, love my mother, Lois.
