"A name pronounced is the recognition of the individual to whom it belongs. He who can pronounce my name aright, he can call me, and is entitled to my love and service."

— Henry David Thoreau.


Our name has power. Far more, in fact, than most of us realize. It is our identity. We like to hear it said aloud. Even more than that, we love it when people address us by name. Dale Carnegie, American writer and lecturer, has gone as far as saying that our name is the sweetest thing we can hear. Search the web for articles on the importance of our names and you’ll find there’s a lot of agreement on this. One site I visited likened using someone’s name to “adding a sweet cherry on top of a conversation.” (goodmenproject.com) It turns out, when you call a person by name, it shows that you see them as someone other than a random stranger.  In fact, hearing our name said aloud even creates a positive link towards the speaker. Hearing others say our name, can make us feel seen, valued, and establishes a personal connection. Still better, when we hear our name spoken it activates the brain’s reward system, which then releases the pleasure hormone, dopamine. In the end, this simple act enhances our mood and reinforces positive feelings.

All of that goes a long way towards explaining why it means so much when someone important to us addresses us by name. However, as with most things, there are some exceptions. I recently read a meme on social media that said, “I am convinced that the sole purpose of a child’s middle name is to let them know when they are in trouble.” Think back to when you were younger and, in a stern no-nonsense tone, one of your parents addressed you either by name, or worse yet, your full name. If you were like most of us, it was hard to fight the urge to run and hide. Yes, tone of voice and accompanying facial expressions are important too!

One of the best explanations I found of why our name has such power is that, from the beginning or our life it is “our tag” -- the thing that is always with us. It is what others “tug on” when they want to get our attention. Even if we are already engaged in a conversation, when someone says our name we will stop talking and turn our head towards them. They’ve effectively “tugged our tag” and gotten our attention, and, their tone and context will determine how we remember the way hearing our name made us feel.

The last time I heard my late husband say my name was not the way anyone wants to remember hearing how something was said, much less by someone they love. He called my name for help when he took the fall that started the downward spiral, which, 19 days later would end his life. I heard him loudly call my name, in a scared and urgent tone. And that was it. After that I never heard him say my name again.

I can’t tell you how many times I wanted, just one more time, to hear him call my name in the way he did when he walked in the door, when he admiringly told me how nice I looked, or when he said goodnight at the end of the day. In those first weeks and months I spent a lot of time at home alone, trying to figure out who I was without him in my life after all those years and how I would navigate life now without him in it. In that time, I desperately wanted to be seen – seen not as a widow. Not as someone to be afraid to talk to because it was hard to know what to say to me. Or worse yet, as someone deserving of pity. I wanted to be seen as me – Julie - Whoever that was that I had become with his death, but also the person that I had always been and who was still there, buried underneath all of the sadness. I wanted to hear my name and know that I was still alive, and that, while his death had changed me, no one had “stolen my tag.”

In one month, I will hit the three-year mark since Brian’s death. If you have been reading my posts since I first started this blog, you have watched me struggle with despair, confusion, anger, and uncertainty. And, as the months turned into years, I hope you have seen me learning to smile and finding my way back to life.

Even before Brian died, I knew that everyone is a work-in-progress, and until the day we die, life will change us. It will bend us. Break us. Make us laugh and make us cry. And it will take all of our experiences and skillfully mold them into who God has planned we will be. Because, after all, He is the original creator of each of our tags.

“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are mine!”
                        Isaiah 43:1