A Name A Wish A Whisper A Desire

By Karen Chaston

When I gave birth to my daughter in 1973, I named her Liza Mary.
Liza: after Liza Minnelli.

Mary: after my paternal grandmother, who was always a blessing in my life,

though even more so during those five months I spent in an unmarried mothers’ home at sixteen.

The name wasn’t chosen lightly.
At fifteen, I’d sat wide-eyed in the cinema, watching Cabaret.

I was captivated. Mesmerised by the performance, by the raw talent, by the magnetic, unforgettable presence of Liza Minnelli.

She played Sally Bowles, of course, but I wasn’t drawn to Sally’s real-life pain.

At fifteen, I didn’t see that part. I only saw the dazzling surface: the boldness, the brilliance, the artistry. I saw strength. Power. Independence.

And I wanted that for my daughter.

I wanted her to shine, to be fearless, to walk into rooms and light them up.
To be creative, expressive, unapologetically herself.
To live and be the Liza I thought I was seeing.

But sometimes, we only see what we want to see.
Sometimes, we project our dreams onto others; especially our children, before understanding the weight of the world they’ll carry.

What I missed at the time was the other side of Sally.
The quieter ache. The off-stage woman; uncertain, people-pleasing, craving love, often giving herself away to feel needed.
It’s a complexity I didn’t yet have the life experience to understand.

And yet, as life unfolded, it seems that’s the part my daughter; now known as Kim, has embodied more.

Not because she lacks strength or brilliance.

But because trauma has a way of dimming the light.

Of silencing the song. Of pressing pause on the stage performance before it has a chance to truly begin.

Through the experience of adoption;

the abandonment, the disenfranchised grief, the silence, Kim has, at times, felt more like the backstage version of Sally.

Hesitant. Guarded. Unsure of her place.
Carrying a weight that was never hers to bear.

Because the experience of adoption shapes you in ways the world rarely sees.
Because when you’re adopted, you often learn to play a role. Survival can mean performance.
You sense, even without words, that being your full, unfiltered self might be too risky.
That innate connection, once fleetingly known, imprinted, then lost … left a fear that anything close could be lost again.

So you adapt. You become who you think you need to be to stay safe, to stay wanted.
You wear the mask because the cost of being truly seen feels too high.

And so, she adapted. She shaped herself to what the world, her world, needed her to be,

all while hiding and burying the parts that felt too risky to reveal.

And yet… I know.
I know the Liza within her still exists.
Because I see glimpses; in her courage, her empathy, her spark.
Because she is my daughter.

Sometimes, we hold ourselves back from becoming who we truly are.
Because the world hasn’t always made room for that version of us.
Because we weren’t mirrored. Or met. Or understood.

But the name I gave her wasn’t just a name.
It was a wish.

A whisper of who I believed she could become,

not because she had to perform or prove anything,

but because I knew that brilliance already lived in her bones.

And because I knew I would not be there to nurture it.
To water it.
To help bring it forth in the way only a mother can.

And maybe… just maybe…
The name Liza was never about who she had to be.
But a reminder of who she already was.

Have you ever named someone; or been named, with a dream in mind?

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