Blog 3498 – 06.01.2035
The Sweetest Name On Earth
I have been called by many names in my life. The old joke goes, “I don’t care what you call me’ just don’t forget to call me at supper time.” Yet, as Dale Carnegie points out in one of the chapters in his best selling book, How To Win Friends and Influence People, the sweetest name on earth is our own and we love to hear it.
Do you know what your name means? We later immigrants to North America found it bit strange that the First People gave themselves names like Running Bear and White Doves but these were not their names which were usually a single word in their native dialect that we had trouble pronouncing so we translated the literal meaning of that word into English instead. My first name David derives from a Hebrew word that means “beloved.” I have been called a lot worse.
On one of my inspector jobs several years ago, a manufacturing supervisor gave me a little black and white folded tract once that on the front had a picture of Jesus with the words, “Jesus Loves You.” When you opened it, on the inside it read, “But the rest of us think you are an Asshole.” Rather crude and a bit jarring, yet as I said, I have been called worse.
One of the names I most like to be called is Baby. My wife calls me that. I even have Siri on my iPhone programmed to call me that. My brother Robert when he was three had trouble pronouncing David and it came out Baby and since then I have always loved being called Baby.
Below is attached the link to a song that my daughter Emily recorded for me a couple of years before she died. Like Nat King Cole’s daughter Natalie did with her dad’s song Unforgettable, I made the Baby Song into a duet.
Yesterday, I visited my son and my a my almost twenty-two month old granddaughter Emma Grace. She called me Poppa three times. That is my new favorite name. It melts my heart when Emma says it, the same way that my daughter and son when they were little saying “Daddy” did.
Pet names are nice and we all deserve a little petting from time to time.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
A Duet With My Baby
theencouragingword 