What is a name, if not a story? Not long ago, I was adamant about taking my mother’s maiden name. The time had come to leave my married name behind. Twenty years is a long time to hold onto something that has become meaningless. And because my father denied me at birth and was not in my life, I always hated his name: Buruca. After my divorce, I preferred to carry something meaningless rather than carry hate. And so for twenty years, I carried meaninglessness. Pinillos settled into me like another’s glove, worn and familiar but never truly mine. 

But with age comes experience and with experience, the clarity to see things through new eyes. Just recently, an urgent need overtook me, the need to meet the man who had always been a puzzle: my biological father. I immediately arranged to meet him in Honduras. Once I made up my mind, there was no stopping me. And so, we met and attempted to establish a relationship. Although the experience fell far short of my expectations, it did not surprise me. Perhaps I was hanging onto a yearning that would never be satisfied. I imagined my father could fill the empty gaps. But I’ve made peace with the fact that some gaps will always remain. Still, the experience opened the door to something unexpected, a new, hopeful path: a new family.

On this new path, walking alongside family I had only just met, I found myself reclaiming my name. All along, I had been wrong, or perhaps just narrow-minded. The name was never his alone. I inherited the name just as much as my father did. It had been waiting for me to see it as mine. And so, with a new family that welcomed me with open arms and tear-filled eyes, I became once again—Yaira Buruca.

Mil gracias a mi familia Buruca, a cada uno de ustedes que me recibió con los ojitos mojados y los brazos abiertos- los quiero.