tagged

The tags on Riley’s packages begin at the bow and wrap around the side, a thin white stripe, carefully taped. She writes sentences, not only the typical to and from, and because of this, sticker tags won’t do. To the man who likes to relax in front of the TV who is named Opa Jones, says one. The package is soft and lumpy, and when she ran out of paper, she chose another print for the patch. Beside it, I bend down to see, another says, To the love of my life, my boyfriend who is named Josh Jones. I have to pick up the box and turn it upside down to follow the trail of her writing, the words written in pen in her careful hand. I read them and feel the smile on her face. I am reading love, holding it in my hands. I can almost see the slow, thoughtful way she worked, the way she wrote, the way she carefully taped the lines around, like an embrace. And, as though she’s standing right beside me, I can feel her waiting for us to chuckle with joy.

In a lifetime, we each receive (sometimes from ourselves) a burdensome weight of hurtful words about ourselves, and reciprocally, we give out an awful many to others. So much weary pain sits at the end of the sentence that begins “I am,” and it’s no coincidence, but in fact a declaration of an evil war, that we sully the two simple words God chose for his own name–I am (see Exodus 3:14)–with painful untruths. Why, if not for this, does it come easier for us broken people to tag ourselves and others with criticism instead of love? I look at Riley’s package, still in my hand, and wonder what if, before slinging that mud, we remembered God? What if we read off, on the wrapping of God’s many daily gifts to us, His words about whom we have all become because of Christ?

My dad started this Christmas tagging tradition in our family when my brothers and I were young, or at least I think so. It could be Dad will tell me the tradition began long before we drew first breath. Anyway, as long as I can remember, it’s been Dad’s job to write the tags for the packages. He never writes our actual names, and were he to do so, we might believe we have upset him or that something has gone gravely wrong. Especially in childhood, trouble always comes addressed formally, to the whole appellation–first middle last, and never ever to the you that inspires a gracious snicker over an inside joke. In any case, the tradition came to Dad as naturally as the “Bobby and Joey” stories he made up for us kids on the fly at bedtime.

Dad has a history with names that remains part of our family lore. His memory for other people’s names being challenged, my resourceful and loving father turned his own forgetfulness into an opportunity to draw others in rather than push them away. Every one of my friends received a new name from first meeting my dad, and with these, he was surprisingly consistent. Sometimes, Dad chose nicknames recalling some snatch of shared experience, and other times, he chose normal everyday names, just not the ones my friends had been given by their parents at birth. For example, at our house, my neighborhood friend Shelley became Veronica, and every time Dad called Shelley Veronica, Shelley smiled, a big, wide, I-am-loved kind of grin. There’s something special about a new name when it’s carved out of love and affection. As an adult, still having no real idea what Shelley’s life in her own home was like (Dad may have had some notion), I wonder if being Veronica at our house somehow gave Shelley permission to shed some of the burdens she didn’t want to carry and pick up a happier version of herself.

In the Bible, where the meanings of names are significant, re-naming happens frequently. Famously, Saul became Paul, but also Simon became Peter, Abram became Abraham, Sarai became Sarah, Jacob became Israel, and in every case, the new names mean to convey a transformation or a newfound freedom. In Revelation, the victorious of one of the seven churches are promised, “a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it (2:17).” That passage, for all it’s anticipatory joy, has always reminded me of my dad.

When Kevin and I moved into our first home, my dad happened to meet one of our new neighbors first and introduced him to us by a different name. That time, the renaming happened by accident; Dad had simply misremembered. We still laugh about that, reminiscing over family dinners, but I’ve come to see that the flubdub over that name only made us real and accessible to our new neighbors, who eventually–and with laughter–told us about our mistake. Even by accident, Dad had somehow managed to draw people across the awkwardness of introduction into relationship.

So, it’s really no surprise that at Christmas Dad had–still has–his own take on labeling our packages. Instead of our actual names, he writes things like to our Jeopardy-watching buddy, or to our family writer, or when it comes to my mom, to my sweetie from her honey. Those tags have always been like a gift on a gift, like grace upon grace, like reading love and holding it in your hands. Those tags say, here are some of the things I appreciate about you; they say, I know you; they say, I love you. Dad’s Christmas tags give us hundreds of new names and hundreds of reminders of our identity as beloved children. The tags come before the gift, and we pay attention. And while I’m not one to save wrapping paper, I have pages in my journal full of Dad’s tags.

I don’t remember if I put the pen in Kevin’s hand and insisted or if, inspired by my dad, Kevin started writing all the tags for our Christmas packages, but he carries on Dad’s tradition. Right now beside me sit three separate stacks of wrapped gifts–stacks Riley checks daily for changes, each labeled with a 3×5 index card bearing one of the kids’ names. The packages sit delayed “in labeling,” awaiting their creative tags. And, in seasons when we begin to believe the unkind labels of life, those tags still tell us the truth.

So, it also doesn’t surprise me that of our three, Riley, who loves others well by knowing and remembering their names, who finds humor in and extends affection through nicknames (Jones, anyone?), has adopted this tradition as her own, with an Autism-friendly twist. As a literalist and a concrete thinker, our third-generation tagger combines creativity with a dash of specificity. Every one of Riley’s tags includes that same here are some of the things I appreciate about you as well as a “who is named” and her favorite affectionate title for us. More than new names, Riley tags us with whole stories about who we are and how much she loves us. And as Dad’s tags and Kevin’s tags have, Riley’s tags represent grace upon grace already given.