My Name - by a 9th Grader

A name is a gift for being born. My name at times can be a gift and other times I am made fun of for it. A name is how a person is called, how I am called. Sometimes I feel like I can hear the wind calling my name. It’s a bittersweet feeling when you hear your name. Sometimes your name can be loud as an elephant stomping its feet or quiet as a mouse. Some days when your name is called it’s as if you’re eating a cake and other days it’s when you are doing the wrong thing, like when my dog gets the bread from the bread box. My name comes from my great grandmother on my mother’s side. It was also my great great grandmother’s name. It’s almost a family name except I don’t know anything about who they are and where they’re from. I do know I’m related through blood and by name. When I was younger kids would take my name and separate the syllables. “Hel-En,” “Hel-En,” it would cause me to cry a whole river. It sounded like how. Later when people did that I would tell them to switch it to “En-Hel” which to me is ‘in hell,’ because it made me feel powerful. It made me feel better about myself. It made me realize it wasn’t worth it As the children got older so did their insults for my name but they came up with a new one, ‘Helen Keller.’ Really it was a few older boys at first when they called me that I’d give them a rude hand gesture. Then ‘BAM,’ I had an idea, just ignore it. It helped because I learned it wasn’t worth it. At an early age I looked up the meaning of my name. I learned that it meant ‘light’ in greek. ‘Light.’ I now know that I was named ‘Helen’ because I am my parents' light. I am a light for others. I am a light for myself. Every time I get sad I remind myself I am the light in the darkness. I can make it through the dark by shining my light. By being myself.