How I Got My Name

My sister's name was Cassidy Claire. Mom thought "Cassidy" was the greatest name for a dog like her. She was really sad not to get to use it longer. She knew she could have named me "Cassidy", too, but it wasn't really right for me and Mom felt bad doing that, too.

My people-dad has always been partial to things having initials that matched his own- K. C. He's always coming up with some permutation or other of those letters- in all of his computer games and stuff. If he has his way all of his people-children will be named with those letters. Mom jokes that we will have an entire cheerleading squad because Dad keeps coming up with names like Keely, Kylie, Kelcie...

Mom says "Ugh!" to that, but she will probably go along with it just because they can't ever agree on anything.

She and Dad had picked out Cassidy together, and then Dad went away to work out-of-state for the year. I think sometimes Mom feels she expected too much of Cassidy and that's why she died. Cassidy was old enough to come home a week after Dad left. Mom spent that whole week preparing for her, excited about having something to put all of her energy and time into while Dad was gone. She was really looking forward to the activity and the companionship. It was important to her to have something that would always be happy to see her when she arrived home. Sure, the cats are nice, but they are motivated by one thing. It's called "Oh! Somebody to feed me!"

So, after Cassidy passed, Mom came back to pick, me out. She hadn't been able to decide between us, originally. She pondered names all the way to the ranch. Bethany, Hannah...she really wanted something that would include Dad, since he couldn't be here to assist in the decision, so she started musing over "K" names. Then she recalled that movie Sugar and Spice and how when she'd watched it, she was struck by the character in it named Kansas. It was unique and different (like my coloring) and the character by that name was quite a rebel with a rather colorful past.

It seemed suitable. I had my name before the car even pulled into the drive.