Thursday, June 5, 2008

Reflections from a Mother's Heart


Several years ago, I found this really great journal and I bought it thinking how much fun it would be and how well I would use it. The journal was entitled "Reflections from a Mother's Heart" Your life Story in Your Own Words. Each page has a different question or idea to help you write.

Sad to say I only wrote on the first page and never picked it up again. It's just been sitting here for years next to my PC. So today I felt like blogging but couldn't really think of anything that would get my creative juices flowing, so I thought, "Hey...why not try writing a page in that journal on your blog once in a while?" So that is what I am going to do. Maybe it will also get you to thinking how you would have answered the questions or remembered certain moments in your life....here goes.

Alicia...
A Latinization of Alice, which is in turn from the Germanic Adalheidis (from the Germanic *adal, meaning noble, and *heid, meaning type), via the Old French Adelais, via Old High German.

Alicia Trivia...
Alicia Foster, better known as Jodie Foster, U.S. Actress
Alicia Appleman-Jurman, Polish memorist of the Holocaust
Alicia Moore, better known as "Pink" U.S. pop singer
Hurricane Alicia, devastating hurricane in 1983
Alicia Submarine, a six-seater submarine
Alicia, California, a city in California, also a city in Arkansas
Alicia Spinnet, fictional character in Harry Potter stories

Why all this info on the name Alicia? Because the question is:

Who gave you your name and why? Did you have a family nickname? How did you get it?

My name was given to me by my mother, Tomasa. She tells me that when she was a little girl living in a labor camp with her parents and about 12 siblings she used to hear a women that lived in the same camp come outside of her door in the evenings and yell her daughters name to get her to come home. She would hear... ahleeseeah, only stretched out as mothers do when they call their children at the top of their lungs.

Every time she heard it she would think that someday when she had a girl she would name her Alicia because she herself didn't like her name at all, Tomasa.

And that is how I came to be named Alicia.

About nicknames, I had a few. My entire name is Nora Alicia, so on my dads side of the family they all usually called me Nora. On my mom's side of the family they usually called me Licha or Vachecha. Lots of people have also called me Guera because of my light complexion. One of my dad's favorite nicknames for me unfortunately was "chingada enanita" translated to mean roughly a swear word followed by midget, like damn midget..sort of. I'm not the tallest of people, standing at 5'1". Most recently all my nieces and nephews have taken to calling me Tia Ale and my sister Lisa calls me Al or White. It's funny because sometimes when we answer the phone with each other she'll say "Hey White" and I'll say "Hey Black" because I am light complected and she's dark complected.

And thats how I happened to have this beautiful name that I love so much!
That's my story...and I'm sticking to it!

No comments:

Post a Comment