The dog and the 태명

What do you call the baby before it's born, when you don't know what gender it will be? Korean has a word for this: 태명 (胎名, tae-myeong), "a pre-natal name."

We didn't have a word for it in 1985, but my brother had a 태명. Our Dad came home from work one day, supremely pleased with himself, and told us what it would be.

Obadiah Aurelius Kottke. OAK. "Stumpy" for short. Dad thought this was absolutely hilarious.

Almost a decade later, (1994?) we got our last "family dog," and gave him that name. Only we didn't call him "Stumpy"; we called him Obee.

I didn't much care for Obee. When I came home from work, he would run down the stairs to the entrance and lose bladder control on the tile and my shoes. When I came home from Daytona Beach in spring 1995, it chewed up my shark tooth necklace. The dog was a nuisance.

I have been going through old pictures recently, and I came across this picture that my sister had taken. At some point in the past, I had laminated it, despite my indifference toward the subject.

I don't know why I did that, but I'm glad I did. Obee was my brother's first dog. It was named after him. And now, despite whatever irritations the dog caused, I love this picture.

And I miss them both.