A Letter On A Name

Dear Naomi,

I understand you’ve learned that you were almost given my name. You were told recently that your parents were deciding on the way to the hospital whether you would be a Callie or a Naomi. Your mom told me that when you heard this story you told her you wished they’d named you Callie.

I’m incredibly self-centered and like to think you want my name because of my magnetic personality and my wry sense of humor, even though you’ve only met me once or twice. (Three times to be exact, but you were barely walking that first time. You had the cutest pigtails in your hair that day in the kitchen when we first met. Your mom and I and some friends were on our way to Breckenridge and your mom deftly and gracefully did your hair before giving you a kiss goodbye, and this is all to say that I remember you and your big as saucers blue eyes and your tow-headed pig-tail self.)

I remember wanting to be a Samantha. People would call me Sam. Now that’s a cool name, I thought. “Is Sam coming to the game? Did you hear? Sam’s in my homeroom! Sam’s a fast runner.” Everyone would assume people were talking about a boy and then I’d walk in the room and BOOM! I’d shock them all with my female fast running self. It’d be just like when Atticus Finch proved there was no way Tom Robinson hurt Mayella because his left hand doesn’t work and BOB EWELL’S DOES. Indeed, I believed if I was a Samantha, I could spend my life surprising people.

It’s good to play pretend every now and then. I know you know this because you’ve read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. You’ve walked through the wardrobe and back again and you know that pretending helps us with the truth we encounter and hold everyday.

Here’s a bit of truth about your name that might have some “Callie pretend” in it, but like Aslan, sometimes there needs to be a lion in the story to open up the possibilities truth offers. “No, no,” you think when you read CS Lewis, “there’s no way a strong, fierce lion would allow the queen to do what she did.” But he did and you read that story and begin to think about the different ways there are to be strong and fierce, and maybe you start to think what kind of person it takes for us to feel at home in grace.

So here’s my take on your name: You are named after Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, whose husband Elimelech died pretty early on in the story (Ruth 1:3 to be exact). Ruth married one of Naomi and Elimelech’s sons, but he died, too, and in one of the saddest passages in the Bible, the narrator tells us that “Naomi was left without her two sons and her husband.” Naomi gives Ruth an out. She tells her it’s OK for her to go back to her town, her friends, her mother and father.  Naomi’s sister-in-law, Orpah, decides to leave but Ruth, in what I think is a pretty powerful passage tells her mother-in-law that no, she’s going to stay with her. “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where  you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay,” Ruth promises Naomi.

I think about this verse often (it was the verse Mr. Feyen and I chose to use on our wedding invitation), and here’s what I believe: Ruth’s Naomi must’ve been so captivating, so comforting, so funny, so creative, so something that Ruth wanted to be around her. There was something about Naomi that Ruth needed. I refuse to believe that Ruth stayed with her purely out of obligation.

Please don’t misinterpret; I am not saying Naomi was all of these things. I am not suggesting you strive to be the Proverbs 31 woman. Ain’t nobody got time for that.  What I am suggesting, sweet Naomi, is that your parents chose your name over mine because they knew – before you were even born – that you have something about you that will make people say, “Don’t turn away from me. Where are you going? Can I come, too?”

You are going to read this and go to the Bible and look for proof that Ruth felt this way about Naomi. You won’t find it. Like CS Lewis’ wardrobe, I created it. It’s what I do – take a bit of truth and write it over in the hopes I, and others might see it differently. I’m working hard to make a career out of it.

But how could you not believe me? Of course your parents would name you after a woman someone desperately wanted to be with. Of course they would name you Naomi and not Callie. They already know Callie; what’s she’s like and what she’s capable of. Naomi, though, she’s a mystery. This child that was knit wonderfully and fearfully in her mama’s womb will carry a name of a woman whom I believe must’ve had something about her that made her daughter-in-law turned widow promise she would never leave her. “Don’t turn away from me, Naomi.”

Don’t wish your name away, Naomi.  Callie holds all sorts of problems.  Most people, upon hearing it, assume I cannot say my “r’s” and call me Carrie. But I’ve enjoyed fitting into this name for the past forty years. It’s served me well, and I’ve learned that I don’t need to be called “Sam” in order to surprise others, including myself. What I need is a story I can sit with for awhile, and I guess that’s what I think you need, too.  So I’m giving you one. I hope you like it. I hope it helps you walk through a mysterious world where you will meet all sorts of people who will surely say to you, “Where are you going? Can I come along?”

Love, your friend,

Callie