The Nickname: A Daughters Tale

Many people throughout this rock have been provided a nickname. A name that is outside of their birth certificate holding name. One that means something to someone… somewhere.

Maybe you love your nickname and what it represents, or maybe you despise it and hope that it fades away with time.

Regardless of if it’s stuck to you for life or not, there is a meaning behind it. I would like to let you all in on the nickname I have grown to adore.

However, there is only one person who has ever called me by it.

And to hear the name — you would never understand it unless it was explained to you. When I was young, my mother gave me the nickname that she still refers to me as today: Peaches.

Yes, that’s right. She nicknamed me after a fruit. — The reason…. Because for the first two years of my young life….

I had no hair. All I had was Peach fuzz on top of my head.

Still today, that is what she calls me. It’s even the name she has placed along my cell number in her phone.

This name is held dear to my heart. 31 years she has called me this. No one else, just her. It holds more meaning to me than how much hair I had as a child.

It is the kind of bond I have shared with my mother throughout my life. We have been best friends even since I was able to understand what a best friend was.

Yes,

Taylor Michael has been my best friend of 20 years.

But this friendship is a bit different. My mother was the one who would take me on lunch dates in the middle of a school day because she knew how badly I was treated by bullies. My mother was the one that would wipe my tears when a boyfriend left me for another person.

My mother was the one who reminded me every day that I was going to be someone.

My mother.

The person who turned me into the driven, blunt, and interesting individual you see before you today.

When I hear my nickname come from her mouth, I remember my entire childhood in an instant. I remember that I would not have made it through my adolescent years without her. I remember that she made me feel important when I was shattered.

I remember.

Peaches is not just a nickname for me. It is a word that encompasses everything that I have shared with my mother. I will forever cherish the word when I hear it. For one day, no one will call me by that name anymore.

Tears in my eyes as I write this, for I wish that day wasn’t ever going to come.

However, I am a logical person. I understand the book of life eventually comes to an inevitable end.

So, today, I will smile when she calls me Peaches, peach or peachy.

It will never mean the same coming from anyone else.

🧡Shine Bright, Kayla