Baby #2 in my belly is a boy. For years, I have thought that if I had a boy, I'd use part of my dad's name in baby boy's name. My dad died when I was 22 of diabetes complications--complications he pretty much had relentlessly from his 20s until his death at age 61. He's been gone a while now (13 years) which is hard to believe.
Problem with my dad's name is I don't really like either of his names...Douglas means "dark water" and sounds very omnious to me (as much as I love water as an element) and Frank means "free" (kinda cool) but Adam doesn't like it. We have toyed with Franklin, but then I'm not sure if it still retains its connection as strongly...
To find some clarity, I dug out a box of my dad's life that I inherited from my mom. In this box are old photos (cool one from World's Fair in NYC), cards from his First Communion, Graduations, his 8th grade yearbook (I was looking at it and thinking that he went to a White school, and then I realized it was BEFORE Brown vs. the Board of Ed = before school integration!), a NY Giants program, letters inviting him to interview at the CIA (where he worked for 30 years), rejection letters from the Secret Service b/c he had diabetes, a scavenger hunt list from his fraternity at Rutgers that has a Lena Horne signature on it (so cool!), postcards from throughout his life (including some from me when I lived in France)...the list goes on.
As much as I love reading these relics and imagining my dad at these points in his life, what really struck me this time around was that my dad had aspirations, experiences, and ideas that I was never privy to as his daughter, especially since he died when I was not quite yet an adult. Almost 2/3 of his life happened before they adopted me, which is also crazy. There was so much to him that I don't know and will never know...
In some way, this really hit me this time. And I'm more excited to figure out how to name my son after him...now I just have to decide between Douglas and Frank...
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not that you asked me (or even care), but i like both of those names. some of our closest friends have a little boy named frank and it's just adorable. classic, no-nonsense, and uncommon.
ReplyDeleteone other thought - did your dad have a first communion name? i think catholics do that (although i'm not sure he was catholic.)
you know, funnily, when going through this box of stuff i realized he wasn't catholic! but raised lutheran--and i was raised catholic, which was weird!
ReplyDeletewe have a first name, so douglas or frank will be middle names...