Aside from the fact that Dahlstrom was the name she had been working under professionally throughout her career, her name was her identity – the very essence of who she was.
And despite the fact that she would receive letters from the bank addressed to a ‘Mrs Michael Anderson’, to her, that person didn’t exist.
Indeed, she writes, in a powerful piece on Today.com, when her first child was born, she and her husband resolved the issue by naming their son Phoenix Lind Anderson – an amalgamation of her matriarchal surname and her husband’s name.
But her thoughts on taking her husband’s name changed dramatically after the tragic passing of Phoenix, at just seven-months-old, from bacterial meningitis.
Describing her utter heartbreak at the loss of her child, Linda writes that his name took on a specialness that she longed to make her own.
Linda went on to officially take her husband’s name – now going by Linda Anderson in her home life – as a special way to stay connected to her baby.
“In the end, I didn’t so much take my husband’s name as I did my son’s,” writes Linda, adding, “Someday, my husband and I will be buried next to Phoenix. I need strangers who walk by and see my name on the marker to know that I belong with that little boy.”
Her final thought is a powerful and moving one: “I am a woman with two names — neither one fully or exclusively defines me. Contained within them is room for all of who I am.”
