The Rock...

Today, I guess, is my lucky day. This is the moment I have been waiting for. I should grab this special time to give myself freedom. This is my sole chance to tell my story.

It was the dawn of a peaceful day when a mother gave birth to a baby boy. Doctors, nurses and other staff members of the hospital were very busy and in a hurry to clean the baby and the mother and finish everything because there are a lot of mothers in pain lined up into the delivery room. The father, nervously and patiently waiting outside the delivery room, finally received the good news. As he was asked by the nurse for the name of the baby, the father immediately responded and said “Pedro.” The nurse wrote the name on the registration form, not knowing that the father mistakenly heard her question as “What is your name?”

However, the entire process of registration went on and the name of the baby boy is now officially and legally registered as “Pedro.”

The mother and the father are my loving parents, and I am their baby boy.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t aware of what I will be going through because of my name. Buboy is my nickname, which is common among Bicolano little boys. I was comfortable with my real name until I become an adolescent when I was teased and bullied because of it.

Since then, when I hear someone call my name, my mind rejects that Pedro is my name. I don’t know why my auditory organ cannot process and give signals to my brain that someone is calling me with my real name; it’s strange but true.

After all that happened, I started to ask my mom about why I have “Pedro” as my name. She started to tell the story and she mentioned that I should have been Daniel or Dante to follow the same pattern of the first letter of the names of my siblings.

When I was in my high school, I learned that my name is a biblical name. Peter, the rock, the apostle. I started to feel good about my name since I was also attending Sunday mass and singing with the church choir.

Confidence shot up again as I gained a lot of friends in the neighborhood and in the school community. Friends would call me Peter, Buboy, or Boy for short. My sisters would also play with my name when they call me “Negro” because of my dark skin tone. I actually love it when my sisters call me that name as a term of endearment for their youngest sibling. My nephews and nieces would call me “Tito Buboy.” It sounded very pleasing to my ears.

When Internet came, I created an email account and used BUBOYZONE as my username. I coined my nickname Buboy with the famous boy band Boyzone to give my pet name some class.

As I went on with my life, I met a lot of special people whom I considered as my best friends. I started to have a fruitful career in teaching young minds. All of them call me Buboy. I comfortably accepted it as my name.

At one point in my life, I thought about changing my name legally. I asked lawyers about the tedious process I have to undertake to change my name. The law says that I cannot have a totally different name. My new name should be at least the name I grew up with. I thought that Buboy is not a professional sounding name. Since I am in the academe, Buboy to me is not so appropriate. I dumped the idea and moved on with my life.

In the early years of my profession as a teacher, my students would tell me that my name “Pedro” is not “bagay” to my personality. I don’t know why they came up with that idea, but I believe them. Since I am now teaching in an Arab land, some Arabs I know even say that my name sounds sexy to them. That was an idea I really can’t understand. I take it as a compliment thou.

Right now, I do not think much about my name. It is just a name. The most important thing is that I live with the meaning of my name. The rock! The strong, hard, smooth, rough, dark, big and small that I am.

By the way, my whole name is Pedro Mercado Ocampo, Jr. It sounds very Hispanic ha!