The Often Eerie Synchronicity of Names

For the last 15 years, we have lived next to a Haitian family on our right and, for the last decade, next door to Annette and her family on our left. For awhile, Annette’s twin sister and her husband and son also lived next door.

The Haitian family has five daughters. The dad speaks good English, but the mother’s English remains broken and since none of us speak French or Creole, our communication with the mother has been somewhat limited. Whenever Annette and I see her, though, we call her Mommy, and that’s what she calls Annette and me.

“Hi, Mommy,” she says, waving enthusiastically at one of us.

“Hi, Mommy,” we call back.

Occasionally, the three of us congregate on the sidewalk in front of our homes and try to carry on a conversation about our kids or our cats. But because of the language barrier, the conversation never gets very far.

Oddly, none of us ever asked what Mommy’s first name is nor has she ever asked us our first names. Until today.

Mommy stopped by Annette’s for something and while she was there, asked what her name was.

“I’m Annette,” she replied.

Mommy drew back in surprise, her eyes wide and startled. “I am Annette.”

“What? No way.”

They both got a big laugh about that, but with the next piece of the conversation, things veered into the very weird. Mommy touched her daughter’s head. “Jannette.”

At this point, Annette was probably hearing chords from The Twilight Zone. Her twin sister’s name is Jannette.

So, what’s with this weird synchronicity with names?

But even more to the point, I think the three of us – both Annettes and I – got lazy because of the language barrier and it was just easier to refer to each other as Mommy. Tomorrow when I see Annette who lives on the right, I’m going to make a point of calling her by her name and introducing myself as Trish.