the history of a name
This had originally been written for a creative-writing class, but the research behind my lineage has been going on for years. (Mostly by my mom, which is why I know more about her side.) Thanks also goes to my best friend's grandma, who added info as well.
I hold my mother's mix of aristocracy and tears not only in my pompous arrogance, but in her name and blood. She must have half of Europe running through her veins, because when you look at my family tree there's a plentiful mix of Romantic and Germanic names that are nigh impossible to pronounce for an American speaker. There was a rich French woman, related to some Austrian who got her head cut off, that escaped to Canada with her British husband. To me, it was a love story, like Romeo and Juliet, except the Montagues were British and the Capulets French. There was a Chippewa Indian squaw, too, and a Checkoslovakian girl who ran away from home with the hopes of finding a new world. They make up my mother, and they make up half of me.
My father's line isn't so diverse, but it's still proud - poor and proud. He is Irish, one-hundred-percent, through-and-through, Irish. Our last name used to be something else- something ancient and spoken in the Gaelic tongue. O'Huaithnin or O'Huainidhe, from a County Cork clan. We were liegemen to O'Leary of Corca Laoighdhe, whoever that was. We might not have been powerful, but we were strong. My family stayed true to their country, even when the spiteful British anglicized our name, until gang wars and famine drove them out.
They were all searching for something here, whether it was love or money or just a chance to start over. Who knows if they ever found what they were looking for? Who knows if it was even real?
The only thing apparent from their search is me: Megan Marie Green.
Megan, the name I own specifically, is what you see: a child trying to climb the fence only to fall down on the concrete, and the climpse of greed and indecision. There's a mix of so many colors that it becomes an ugly, garish hue, much akin to a forgotten pot of burning cabbage on St. Patty's Day. And, of course, there's blatant lying honesty, because when I point out the faults they don't look so bad anymore. And I am them - a POW of WWII, a Native American, drowning in the Detroit River, a Habsburg who didn't understand why the people couldn't eat cake, a Celtic warrior trying to survive on the little food left, a soldier, refined and stiff, fighting in the war of 1812, and a teenager, struggling to accept the fact that she is not the best.
I am searching for something as well, and it doesn't even exist.
I hold my mother's mix of aristocracy and tears not only in my pompous arrogance, but in her name and blood. She must have half of Europe running through her veins, because when you look at my family tree there's a plentiful mix of Romantic and Germanic names that are nigh impossible to pronounce for an American speaker. There was a rich French woman, related to some Austrian who got her head cut off, that escaped to Canada with her British husband. To me, it was a love story, like Romeo and Juliet, except the Montagues were British and the Capulets French. There was a Chippewa Indian squaw, too, and a Checkoslovakian girl who ran away from home with the hopes of finding a new world. They make up my mother, and they make up half of me.
My father's line isn't so diverse, but it's still proud - poor and proud. He is Irish, one-hundred-percent, through-and-through, Irish. Our last name used to be something else- something ancient and spoken in the Gaelic tongue. O'Huaithnin or O'Huainidhe, from a County Cork clan. We were liegemen to O'Leary of Corca Laoighdhe, whoever that was. We might not have been powerful, but we were strong. My family stayed true to their country, even when the spiteful British anglicized our name, until gang wars and famine drove them out.
They were all searching for something here, whether it was love or money or just a chance to start over. Who knows if they ever found what they were looking for? Who knows if it was even real?
The only thing apparent from their search is me: Megan Marie Green.
Megan, the name I own specifically, is what you see: a child trying to climb the fence only to fall down on the concrete, and the climpse of greed and indecision. There's a mix of so many colors that it becomes an ugly, garish hue, much akin to a forgotten pot of burning cabbage on St. Patty's Day. And, of course, there's blatant lying honesty, because when I point out the faults they don't look so bad anymore. And I am them - a POW of WWII, a Native American, drowning in the Detroit River, a Habsburg who didn't understand why the people couldn't eat cake, a Celtic warrior trying to survive on the little food left, a soldier, refined and stiff, fighting in the war of 1812, and a teenager, struggling to accept the fact that she is not the best.
I am searching for something as well, and it doesn't even exist.