Some families attach nicknames to their kin that are not very kind, such as Rat Face and Lard Ass. We never did that. Instead, we assigned names that all sounded the same to a child’s ear. This was brought home to me not too long ago when my daughter said Uncle Moishe was a Guardian Angel watching over her. The truth is Moishe never knew she existed. He died long before she was born. Her actual Guardian Angel was and is Misha. You can see where she’d get the two confused. That’s not to say Moishe never played a part in my daughter’s life. He was directly responsible for her nickname of Shushela. It went like this: Moishe was a sturdy young man built like a square rock. This turned out to be a good thing because he joined a group of Polish freedom fighters who were captured by the Russians and sent to Siberia to be beaten to death. Due to his sturdy frame and nursing by his fellow captives, he not only survived, he showed the Russians who’s who by escaping and walking back to Poland. My mother said there was a sort of underground network that alerted Jewish settlements to the movements of escapees. Uncle Moishe walked during the night, hid in the fields during the day, and was fed by villagers who would sneak bread and cheese to him when the Cossacks weren’t looking. Naturally, it took a while for him to walk from Siberia to Lodz, long enough for his mother to give birth to at least one more child. Late one evening in 1905, he finally reached home. Not certain his family still lived in the same house, he first peeked through the window. There he saw his sister bending over a crib. He thought she was tending to her own newborn, but no, the baby was my mother. Seeing my mother for the first time in that way was the story he would tell me every time he’d get drunk at a family party. Then he’d plant a happy kiss on my mother’s cheek. When he wasn’t telling me that story, he was entertaining himself at my expense by getting my name wrong. I was young enough to fall into his trap every time. “I forgot. What’s your name?” “Carol Ann.” “Oh! Shushela!” “No, I’m Carol Ann.” “That’s right! Shushela!” “No! My name is Carol Ann!” “I know, I know. You’re Shushela.” On and on he would go until he needed another drink. I got even with him by doing exactly the same thing to my daughter. Apparently she got attached to the nickname and the story behind it because when I also referred to my first granddaughter as Shushela, my daughter told me that was her name and I need to think of something else for the newborn. Naturally, based on these stories, she thought it was Moishe who sat by her crib and watched her sleep. Actually, the spry little man who used to tip-toe out of the room after meals at my house to go sit in the rocking chair next to the crib and watch Shushela as she slept was Misha, and he was not a stocky Polish Freedom Fighter. He was a mustache-spouting dapper veteran of the French Foreign Legion. Everyone has a story, especially Misha. His tale began somewhere in the Ukraine and followed him to France. Once there he decided to join the French Foreign Legion to find adventure and see the world, or northern Africa to be more specific. I remember an old photo of him with his fellow Legionnaires. They all sported Charley Chaplin moustaches. After whatever constituted a tour of duty, Misha returned to Paris and learned to be a tailor. He always looked to me like a man who understood haute couture. He was very generous with advice, helping us salvage many an ill-fitting garment with neat tailoring tricks. Tailoring aside, all you need to know is Misha emigrated to America, fathered my brother-in-law, came for dinner, and gave my daughter her first and best loved teddy bear. Further, he is now watching over her as her Guardian Angel. Since the nickname Shushela was being held in perpetuity, I started calling my first Granddaughter Bubbela. This meant by default I had to become Bubbe. However, at the time she was born, she was living in rural south central Virginia. There are no Bubbes in rural south central Virginia, or as Sheldon says in Big Bang Theory, if there were any it was not for long. When Granddaughter two and Grandson one came into my life as ready made pre-teenagers, I had a chance to start over. I introduced myself to them as their Bubbe, no questions asked. Then I had to think up new nicknames so they wouldn’t feel left out. New Granddaughter is my Sheynah Meydeleh. New Grandson is Mein Boyishka. If you don’t know the English translation, don’t feel bad. They don’t either. My nicknames for them mean nothing because they haven’t had to listen to my family stories all their young lives. Until recently, they’d never heard Yiddish terms of endearment. They may not even know my real name. They just know when I’m waving my hands at them and speaking gibberish they’re supposed to come to Bubbe so I can give them a kiss.