Maria...the name!!!
In Spain as well as in Catalonia, the name MARIA is still the most popular name for baptismal choice of names for baby girls. But, in Catalonia, MARIA becomes MARI. Because for them, MARIA is a male name, a translation of the Spanish male name MARIANO. But with an accent at the last letter "A" and pronounced as "Marya".
When I was a child, I really don't want to be called Maria, I want just my name Lobbie. I was struggling between life and death when I was a baby. In a way it had opened my mother's eyes not to continue lamenting the death of my 2 years old brother, Vincent, when I was barely two weeks old and still not baptized. I was merely called Lobbie, a name given by a family friend, Lazaro Mendoza, the Spanish-Filipino among our neighbourhood. He got my name (not the same spelling) from a circus group from Poland dubbed the "midgets of Europe" visiting our hometown for the Feast Day of Sto Rosario Our Lady of the Naval Battle, every October 7 of the year. Lazaro had seen a beautiful lady being shown as 17-18 years old, but she just looked like a baby. Lazaro had remembered me because, I was a very popular baby among the mother's of our neighbourhood, because some of them had to breastfeed me. They reasoned out that my mother was not fitted to breastfeed me during those heavy emotional period after the death of my brother. While my Mother was trying to move on, that no amount of tears can bring back the life of my brother, they're breastfeeding me, because I am a baby...a life to be saved!!!
Barely two months old that time, my mother had to rushed to the church for my emergency baptism. Telling everyone at home not to touched me, that I am not dead...that I am alive and just need a HOLY WATER to regained my health. She too had risked her life running to the church in the midst of a brewing typhoon with rains, winds and lightning!!! The priest can't accompanied my mother back home, because in a moment, he will be officiating a wedding. She was told that for emergency baptism, she can have a Holy Water, a baptism prayer and the parents were not allowed to name their child in any other name except MARIA. They were planning to called me IMELDA HABAL. Then I was officially baptised by the church and later on a confirmation while I was attending religious classes at our Parish Church, in preparation for my first communion.
Who shall think of that day...that someday I will be living for so long in Catalonia where my name shall became MARI or Marilobbie. The latter had appeared for the first time in an invitation letter for a musical concert, that a Catalana friend had thought that my name was jointly written that way, when she jotted-down the spelling of my name, in a telephone conversation. She is a teacher, a poetess and a singer-composer of traditional Catalonian Songs. As for myself, nobody can understand why, I don't want to be called MARIA. My mother used to called me by this name, if she wanted to called my attention or to stopped me from playing with her sewing box or for my impatience when she was making rag dolls for me. I knew when I was a child that Jesus Christ mother is Maria but I want to called her Virgen Mary. Could it be that a past lifetime or the many soul-lives that we had, has been unfolding to me at a very early age??? that someday...I will be called MARI in Barcelona, Catalonia and MARY in London, UK.
When I was a child, I really don't want to be called Maria, I want just my name Lobbie. I was struggling between life and death when I was a baby. In a way it had opened my mother's eyes not to continue lamenting the death of my 2 years old brother, Vincent, when I was barely two weeks old and still not baptized. I was merely called Lobbie, a name given by a family friend, Lazaro Mendoza, the Spanish-Filipino among our neighbourhood. He got my name (not the same spelling) from a circus group from Poland dubbed the "midgets of Europe" visiting our hometown for the Feast Day of Sto Rosario Our Lady of the Naval Battle, every October 7 of the year. Lazaro had seen a beautiful lady being shown as 17-18 years old, but she just looked like a baby. Lazaro had remembered me because, I was a very popular baby among the mother's of our neighbourhood, because some of them had to breastfeed me. They reasoned out that my mother was not fitted to breastfeed me during those heavy emotional period after the death of my brother. While my Mother was trying to move on, that no amount of tears can bring back the life of my brother, they're breastfeeding me, because I am a baby...a life to be saved!!!
Barely two months old that time, my mother had to rushed to the church for my emergency baptism. Telling everyone at home not to touched me, that I am not dead...that I am alive and just need a HOLY WATER to regained my health. She too had risked her life running to the church in the midst of a brewing typhoon with rains, winds and lightning!!! The priest can't accompanied my mother back home, because in a moment, he will be officiating a wedding. She was told that for emergency baptism, she can have a Holy Water, a baptism prayer and the parents were not allowed to name their child in any other name except MARIA. They were planning to called me IMELDA HABAL. Then I was officially baptised by the church and later on a confirmation while I was attending religious classes at our Parish Church, in preparation for my first communion.
Who shall think of that day...that someday I will be living for so long in Catalonia where my name shall became MARI or Marilobbie. The latter had appeared for the first time in an invitation letter for a musical concert, that a Catalana friend had thought that my name was jointly written that way, when she jotted-down the spelling of my name, in a telephone conversation. She is a teacher, a poetess and a singer-composer of traditional Catalonian Songs. As for myself, nobody can understand why, I don't want to be called MARIA. My mother used to called me by this name, if she wanted to called my attention or to stopped me from playing with her sewing box or for my impatience when she was making rag dolls for me. I knew when I was a child that Jesus Christ mother is Maria but I want to called her Virgen Mary. Could it be that a past lifetime or the many soul-lives that we had, has been unfolding to me at a very early age??? that someday...I will be called MARI in Barcelona, Catalonia and MARY in London, UK.
