Ex Marks the Spot, Vol. V

The Jason Show. Touting guest posts from Claire, Jason's ex, since 2008.

In the mail Friday there was another letter from one of the various agencies involved in the care of Daniel. I opened it in the driveway while sitting in my car. It was an exact repeat of one that I had received only last week. I had one of those experiences where the same thing happens and the same emotions happen with the same intensity even though it had happened before. Let me explain.
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Quickly skimming the cover letter and then turning to the copies of reports behind it, I see the name Elijah Davis. My eyes read that name and it takes a millisecond for my mind to catch up. Elijah Davis. That is so foreign to me now. Elijah Davis is now a little boy we know as Daniel. While sitting in my car I turn to my friend Debbie and I show her this page. I say, “Isn’t it strange to see that?” She looks at it and a long second later she says, “Yes, it is. It took me a minute to remember who that is.” For many of us this passage of time has been swift in erasing some of the things we used to know.

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Two months into this transition, The King turned to me and said, “It hardly seems like he was ever with those knuckleheads and it feels like he has always been ours.” My reply to him was, “Can you imagine what it will feel like in another year or in another two years?”

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Some people ask us why we changed his name. We offer this as our explanation and whether everyone agrees, it matters not…

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The subject of his name came up immediately because The King is a master tradesman and everything he owns is carefully inscribed with his initials D.C. so that it can be identified easily among the other crafters in his industry. Some day all of those big boy tools and toys will be handed down to the only son of The King. A son who should also share the initials D.C.. This strong father/son bond is vital to overshadow the day when we are forced to talk about the early rejections of his birth father. The King has taken on enormous responsibility and this is the only thing he has asked for. “Can my son be named for me.” It also happens that Daniel will now carry on the surname of immigrants whose name was to be lost without a male heir for it. This caused The Kings parents to physically rise from their seated position when they realized he was going to be adopted with the name change. Their excitement was notable.

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We knew it was important to change his name as early as possible before he recognized it as his own. Our first instinct was to take his last name of Davis and change that to his first name hoping to retain some of his paternal heritage. We began to introduce that idea into the family. Then the reports from the medical forensics came back and we realized what had actually happened and in our anger we withdrew any regard for his paternal heritage, as it were.
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Snoball named him. One day she said, “I think we should call him Daniel.” We agreed and it stuck. The family took a vote and since Daniel is an important name on my side of the family we settled on it quickly. When the adoption is final his name will be Daniel Lincoln with our last name. Elijah was a little boy without parents to care for and love him. Daniel knows quite the opposite.

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