My mother named me Carlina after my father’s mother, Carlene. Most people I meet tell me how beautiful my name is, but I just smile and say, “Thank you.”

I never got to meet Carlene, but from what I hear she was an addict and died at 24 when my father was just about three years old. His aunt and uncle raised him and his sister along with their own two children on the west side of Buffalo.

The few stories I hear about my father are about the wacky and humongous sandwiches he would make and how hilarious he was. I don’t make humongous sandwiches, but I do have a quality sense of humor. Most importantly, my family tells me how fiercely he loved me. This is an important detail because I once read a letter he wrote saying how he “didn’t want no damn kids.”

Funny enough, I say the same thing in my adult life.

My mother and father met through their families, and it didn’t take long before they fell in love. I was conceived only months after they met. Completely unplanned, my mother once told me they used a cooler as a means to keep their food from spoiling. My parents were unprepared for a baby, but they cared for me the only way they knew how.

When I was three, my father died of brain cancer. He was only 23.

I guess he and I have that in common. He lost his mother, and I lost him, both at the age of three years old.

The year I turned 23, I was totally freaked out. All I could think about was what a baby I still felt like. I couldn’t imagine dying that year, but I was afraid I would.

I’ve always longed for my dad and often think about the absence of a father-daughter dance on my special day. Nonetheless, I don’t get sad on his birthday, death anniversary or even Father’s Day. It’s the random Tuesday once or twice a year that I’m down and out about his death.

When I was younger, I got his name tattooed on my wrist in his own goofy handwriting. One reason was to have him near, another was because he had my name tattooed on him, but I really always loved his name, Carmen.

He didn’t really know his mother, just as I never got the chance to know him, and my mother never met Carlene.

I don’t know exactly why my mom named me after her and I don’t know my father’s feelings about his mother, but “Carlina” holds weight and tells a story of despair and survival.

There is a long line of unfortunate deaths in my family, these two being the most influential to me.

Anytime someone tells me that my name is beautiful, I think of Carlene and Carmen in secret. I have always worn my name with resilience and grit, and I give her thanks for inspiration. 

It’s not the most beautiful life story, but at least I have a beautiful name.

Carlina Krajnik is an opinion writer. Contact her at [email protected].