On Monday we became a forever family of eight, yes I said eight. Although we are a blended family from three different sets of parents, all of our children look alike and oddly, they all look enough like us that people presume that we are their natural birth parents. We have adopted two sets of birth siblings; however, all of them love each other fiercely. We have no idea whether or not our family is done because, if any of the birth parents have more babies that need homes, we will willing adopt them. Charley and I believe that siblings belong together whenever it is humanly and wisely possible; sibling bonds outlast all bonds that anyone ever has; including many marriages. This concept of sibling bonds was solidified in my own heart last year when I discovered that I did indeed have a half sibling of my own, a fact that was not a surprise and I had always secretly anticipated since my dad was a bit of a romeo. I have loved getting to know my brother.
All of my children have come to me with the names that other people have given them; the names have been beautiful and I have loved them: there is Alexis (who was named by her birth mother), Zachary (who chose his own new name from a list of twenty names he wanted{he only changed his name because his bio brother changed his birth name to Zach's birth name and it did not settle well in his heart, I loved his birth name because it was biblical}), David (who chose to keep his birth name), Tamara (who chose her own name from a list of three when we vetoed Cinderella and Princess), Charley (whose birth mother let my husband name him) and finally our newest child who was named first by another woman. Holley's original name meant bitter prostitute and although I doubt they knew it, it was a sore point for Charley and I until the day we changed it. Being a part of Royal Family Kids Camp has taught us to honor names and to research their meanings, besides names mean something; they can be a destiny of sorts and we did not want that to be hers. Really, who would? Someone told us that there is a Princess in the Star Trek series with the Mara-Jade and perhaps that is where they got the name. Perhaps. Wherever the name came from, we called her MJ or YaYa, which is what her full blooded brother named her, the day we brought her home from the hospital.
Once it became clear that she would become a forever part of our family, we started toying with names for her; trying them out like new fancy dresses. As a child I had always dreamed of having a daughter named Victoria or Tasha. Melody and Tabitha also held places in my heart, but I always knew the middle name would be Kay, which means Pure. Victoria Kay. Tasha Kay. Melody Kay. Tabitha Kay. Kay is just a nice little name and it is one of my grandmother's nicknames. My first name was never a consideration because I was named by my father, after one of his girlfriends. My father was a 1960s player. Charley had decided that this little girl may well be the only child that I ever get name and he wanted me to choose; such an honor. (He had also already picked out her
name but wanted me to stumbled upon myself.) The middle name was set in my heart but the first name was ever changing, like the wind itself. Each whisper seemed to fit but he'd only smile and say no. Then one day, I stumbled upon a familiar old name:
Holly Kay. I tried it out on her and she smiled, as if agreeing with me that it fit. Giving her consent. Suddenly it dawned on me that her eyes are the exact sme color as my friend's eyes were, as my mother's eyes are and as my husband's eyes. So her name would be
Holly Kay, if Charley would agree.
It took me a few days to gather the courage to ask Charley about it, to see if the name would work for him since he had vetoed every other name I had asked about. His plan all along had been for me to decide to name this little girl after
my friend. To
honor her memory in this way. Charley figured I would eventually land on the name
Holly Kay and he was right. In the end I decided to change the spelling just a little bit, to match her brother's unique spelling and to make her name all her own, no one should live in the shadow of another. In my heart I hope that Holly is honored that I named the only child I got to name after her...
Holly Kay Hoopingarner 10-13-66 to 5-26-86
On the beaches of my soul
your foot prints wander still
left in the sand of my heart
on one side of the country
this would be a rising sun
but to me, it is always setting
on the memory of your early
death, robbing your dreams
killing your family from the roots up
to me the ocean taste not
so much of salt, but of tears
and laughter for it is there
that we spent our youth
I miss you or maybe it is us
I miss the possibilities of what ifs
and should haves float endlessly by
March 3, 2010 at 11:52 am | edit
Mom