Eddie, Not Sebastião | EddieSilva.com
On paper, Edson. In life, Eddie. A name, a father, Pelé, Sebastião, and the almost-life I did not live.
Hi, my name is Eddie Silva.
I was born in 1967.
On paper, Edson. In life, Eddie.
Most likely, my name came from Pelé.
I say most likely because certain things are decided before memory has any chance to participate. A name is one of them.
You arrive in the world crying, not knowing where you are, not knowing who those people around you are, and someone has already decided what you will be called for the rest of your life.
Edson.
With an E.
Like Edson Arantes do Nascimento.
Pelé.
But somewhere along the way, Edson became Eddie.
Maybe because some names grow with us.
Maybe because we also have the right to adjust the sound of our own story.
I never sat down with my father to ask him about it. I never asked if he was really thinking of Pelé when he chose my name. I never asked if he imagined anything for me when he first heard that name.
Maybe he simply liked the sound of it.
Maybe the whole country liked the sound of it back then.
Maybe, in 1967, naming a son Edson was a simple way to bring a little soccer, hope, and national pride into the house.
My mother once told me that my father, Patrício, wanted me to have the same name as my paternal grandfather.
Sebastião.
Once again, my mother’s voice prevailed.
And I am grateful to her.
Not out of any disrespect for my grandfather. Let that be clear. Sebastião is a strong name. An old man’s name. The kind of name that belongs to someone who probably woke up early, spoke little, worked hard, and did not explain his feelings in an article.
But let’s be honest.
Maybe nobody today would be reading a column signed by Sebastião Silva Jr.
Some names are born wearing a suit.
Some names are born carrying obligations.
Sebastião Silva Jr. sounds like a man who should know how to repair a roof, argue over property papers, and never cry while watching soccer.
Eddie Silva, at least, gave me a chance.
I do not know if I used it well.
But it gave me one.
What I learned from my father was little.
Not because he had nothing to teach.
Fathers always do.
Even when they do not know it.
Even when they do not speak.
Even when they teach more by the way they sit in a chair than by any advice they ever give.
The problem is that I was a child.
And a child has no real understanding of the present.
Much less the future.
A child believes his father is there because he has always been there. He believes his father’s voice is part of the house. That the sound of his footsteps, the shirt hanging somewhere, the plate at the table, the way he coughs, the way he watches a game — all of it belongs permanently to the world.
A child does not know that some things are only passing through.
He does not know that one day he may try to remember the exact sound of his father’s voice and find only pieces.
A sentence.
A gesture.
A scolding.
A Sunday.
A game.
A shirt.
A silence.
Maybe that is why, when my father died, I went into denial.
At the time, I did not know that word.
Denial.
Today, we give names to everything. Back then, we simply kept living. Went to school. Ate. Played. Stayed quiet. The body continued, even when something inside it had stopped on the day of the funeral.
I did not understand my father’s death when it happened.
Not really.
A child understands the fact.
But not the size of it.
He understands that someone has died.
He does not understand that the absence will grow up with him.
My father died when there were still too many questions left to ask.
And maybe that is one of the cruelties of losing someone early.
You do not lose only the father you had.
You also lose the father you might have come to know later.
The father who might have talked to you when you became a man.
The father who might have explained why he wanted Sebastião.
The father, Patrício, who might have told me whether my name really came from Pelé.
The father who might have watched Corinthians with me and understood, without needing to explain it, why certain defeats hurt more than they should.
I was left with the name.
I was left with a few memories.
I was left with the absence.
And, in a way, I was also left with this small, almost silly question that has crossed the years with me:
Why Edson?
Maybe it was Pelé.
Maybe it was my mother winning a small battle inside the house.
Maybe it was just an ordinary choice in an ordinary year.
But today I think a name is also a kind of inheritance.
Even when we do not understand it.
Even when we did not ask for it.
Even when it almost became something else.
I did not become Pelé.
I did not become Sebastião either.
I became Eddie Silva.
And maybe that has already been enough work for one lifetime.