When I met Purification. With some thoughts on unusual names

Today I met Purification.

That may sound like a curious ritual of a far eastern religion. Think monks in flowing robes, lots of chanting or humming, accompanied by ponderous music on instruments unknown in the West. With, naturally, the result that your soul emerges from the experience cleansed, purified and ready to enjoy greater fulfilment from interactions with the outside world.

All that – especially the result – might have been invaluable to me. But it wasn’t what happened. Purification – or, more properly, Purificación – turned out to be a lovely grandmotherly lady who was walking up our street as I returned from a walk in our woods. I think I may have seen her before, but we hadn’t spoken. That was about to change. 

I think she must have heard me speaking French at some time with Danielle, because she asked whether I was a French speaker. It’s possible, though, that she just thought I spoke Spanish with a French accent. It wouldn’t surprise me. My accent in Spanish is bizarre. I’ve been accused of speaking it with an Italian accent, which always strikes me as ironic: why can’t I speak Italian with an Italian accent, instead only managing an English one? Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised by any description of my accent in Spanish.

It turns out that Purificación learned French as a child. But then, she told me, she’d been sent to London where she’d taught Spanish in a language school. After 14 years in England, she came home to Valencia and got herself qualified as a teacher of English. But instead of being posted somewhere to teach English, she was sent to Ghana to look after young children. She spent 11 years there.

Now, she told me, she helps look after abandoned little children in a home just a few minutes walk away.

“Young children, abandoned by their parents, come to us from the hospitals. And we look after them. Just listen for the sound of children and you’ll know where we are.”

After a while, we introduced ourselves to each other. That’s when I learned that her name was Purificación. The name struck me as unusual, but then I’ve met so many names in Spain which sound strange to an Engish ear. Most of them are religious. 

I’ve already mentioned the two men named Jesus I met recently. As well as the  men named José Maria and the women named Maria José. But there are plenty more such names, mostly for women. Yesterday we made a new friend, called Ascención (irrelevant note: she’s invited us to pick oranges at her farm in a couple of weeks). 

The name I like the most is Inmaculada Concepción. We’ve met several women called that. Obviously, it’s pretty much impossible to use in normal daily life. So the name gets shortened. We know several Inmas but we’ve also met an Ada, who’s kept only the end of her name. Using the other word from the name, Concepción, we also know a Conchi, though she’s actually English, with a Spanish mother. 

So Purificación isn’t a particularly surprising name. At least, in itself. It surprised me because, given what I know the kind of thing babies do, and above all what they produce, purity isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Still, other parents may have felt differently about their newborn, I suppose, and decided that purification was just what best summed up their newly arrived daughter.

The Saint Anne home for six children under six
just down the road from us

In her case, though, it may not have been a name given as a child. What she said about her postings is the give-away. She was wearing no kind of uniform, but she could well be in a religious order, and Purificación may have been the name she was given when she entered it. Because there is an order in this story. The Congregation of Sisters of Charity. It runs a home for children under six, near where we live.

It's not quite an order of nuns, though it lives by the standard monastic rules that govern most orders. The big difference is that they take annual vows, so they can leave if they wish, without ecclesiastical permission. A sister who stays does so voluntarily, out of vocation not obligation, and they dedicate their lives to working with the poor, the suffering, the abandoned. 

The home was founded by three sisters in 1988, when it took in six children who were HIV-positive. Today, they’re just kids who need looking after, for various reasons. In most cases, it’s because their parents can't cope.

What amazed me is that Purificación looked older than I am. In her seventies, maybe, even her late seventies. Her eighties? That seems likely.

And that age she’s still helping to look after kids under six?

It seems to me that she deserves her name. Or something even more elevated. Saintliness, perhaps.