I hate nicknames. Of course this isn't a moral issue; it's just a personal opinion. But every time I see a beautiful name on a class roster, and then the student tells me what he or she wants to be called instead, I get sad. "But your parents gifted you with such a lovely name. Why would you want to ruin it?" I want to say. Of course I can't.
Those who know me well, know I am especially sensitive about my own kids' names. On the rare occasion that someone tries to shorten one of them, I get this deep-seeded, intense desire to, uh, claw their eyes out! It's violent really. I have to exercise the utmost self control just to remain sane. I named my children. Well, Gerald and I did. So people better freakin' call them by their correct names.
Yep, I hate nicknames. But then there's this one exception.
My name. Everyone alive today calls me Terrianne, but there was a time when that wasn't the case. The day I was born, my grandpa, independent of what anyone else thought, decided my name should be Tannie, a contracted form of Terrianne. And that was that. My grandma followed his lead, and until the day each of them died, they never called me anything but Tannie.
And I loved it. Because I loved them.
The night I was born, my grandpa was in Canada, presiding at a convention of the International Woodworkers of America, a labor union over which he was the president. As they prepared to sing the familiar labor song "We Shall Not Be Moved," he told the membership that the words would be changed that night. When they would normally sing, "Al Hartung is our leader, we shall not be moved" they would instead sing, "Tannie is our leader, we shall not be moved."
They were the only two who ever called me Tannie. My grandpa died when I was just 12. He was 17 years older than his wife, and he had to wait 21 years for her to join him in heaven. Theirs was a true love story.
I really do not like nicknames, and I never will. But there was this one exception.
Love, Tannie
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