• Daniel leaves.
•Kieran "hypertonic" (i.e. stiff and swollen)
•Kieran returns from hospital.
• First Rites...
• St. Alphonse Church
 |
• Kieran lifeless and blue...
It will be noted that no one was able to agree upon or get my name right. According to mother, she and father could not agree on a name. Every name she came up with father would veto on the ground that it sounded awful in Spanish. "So, at last I came up with a name that couldn't be translated!" Oh happy solution! Also a name that none but inveterate Irish had ever heard of and that inevitably, without fail, got heard as and mistaken for Karen.
My parents were of the enthusiastic view that my "bi-cultural background" gave me unspecified advantages. No it did not. It was a burden and an impediment made worse by the fact that, even correctly spelled, I had a "girl's name." It only served to give me a perspective that was always at odds with wherever I was. No more than anyone else I could never tell what I was or where my identities lay.
Of course, confusion and uncertainty made me the man that I am; but, in the end, so what? Nothing grand came of it. All in all it would have been easier and happier to be ordinary.
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