Speaking his name

Not too many people even know it, and fewer still dare to say it aloud. But my littlest boy, lost one year ago today, has a name. It was important for me to give it to him, because it’s one of the only things I know about him. He was a boy. He sucked his thumb. His name is Simon. I have no pictures, save a few blurry ultrasounds. No clothes or toys or locks of hair. Just his name, which I whisper to myself at night. I tell him I love him, and that I’m sorry. And that I wish he could come back to me. I call  him by his name.

The name is one that was rattling around in my head during those few short months I had with him. It amused me that it is one of only two that I happen to know my late grandmother hated … and the other one is Opie’s name. A friend mentioned it just a few days before everything started to fall apart, which I suppose is why it kept coming to mind during that awful time.

After he was gone, I thought about what I wanted for his name. I like  Gabriel; maybe an angel name would be right. Or one of the boy names I loved but my husband didn’t, like Theodore. Did I want something common, so I could hear it often and think of him? Did I want something unusual, so I wouldn’t have to be reminded so very often (I know now that doesn’t matter; I think of him constantly, reminders or not)? Did it need to match my other children’s names, or not really?

In the end, Simon kept coming up, so Simon it was. Is.

For months, he didn’t have a middle name. I’ve always liked the family name Anton, but didn’t quite dare use it. It doesn’t work with Simon, but Anthony does. Then I learned that January 17 was St. Anthony’s Day. Anthony was a protégé of St. Francis of Assisi (I loved the Franciscans at my parish in Manhattan, and they are known worldwide for their work on poverty and human rights issues). Anthony is often depicted holding a little boy–the baby Jesus–in his arms. And he is the patron saint of lost items.

My Simon Anthony is not an “item,” but he is surely lost, as am I without him.