Story #51: Meet My Nephew, Gloria

The other night I was on the phone with my brother Nathan, who lives in Iowa. Nathan has two sons: Henry is two and a half, and Samuel is two months old. Samuel is not old enough to talk on the telephone, but Henry is, and partway through our conversation Nathan asked me if I'd like to speak with Henry. Well, of course!

First came the predictable scuffling noise that is Henry trying to lift the phone up to his ear--it is heavy and takes both hands for him to hold it, you see. Then began the adventure that is any conversation with Henry: trying to figure out what he is talking about. You see, Henry is not savvy enough to know that when he begins speaking with someone new he should use social conventions for entering a conversation, such as a greeting such as "Hello!" or a pleasantry along the lines of "How are you?" No no, Henry just continues to speak out loud into the phone about whatever happened to be going on in his mind at the time. This, along with the fact that there is a LOT of conversational filler in Henry's speech along the lines of "ah, ah, ah, ah...." makes it very challenging to know what he is talking about sometimes. The absence of visual cues makes it even harder to understand what is going on.

But, it is always an adventure and so this time--like every other chance we've had to chat by phone--I just dove in.

"Hi, Henry, how are you?" I asked.

"That that that ah, ah, ah, that is not my name," came Henry's tiny high-pitched voice across the miles between us.

"Henry, you have to tell Aunt Sarah your new name, she doesn't know it yet," came Nathan's voice in the background as he coached Henry on what to say.

"Do not call me Henry, my name is ah, ah, ah, Gloria!" Henry said emphatically.

"Gloria?" I asked, confused.

"Yes!" he replied firmly.

"Let me talk to your dad," I said.

It turns out that Henry has decided he wants to be called Gloria, because that is the name of his favorite character in the movie Madagascar. So now we call him that and he loves it. Remember back when it was so easy to try new things, to shift your identity, to imagine yourself as any one of a number of different people with different strengths and talents and dreams?