I like the anonymity that using aliases for my daughters gives me. I like that their blog nicknames reflect their personalities and role in my life. But I want to share something that I am doing for The Angel Princess’s second birthday, and when I do that, you will learn her name. So I want to share the story behind it, and why her name is so very special.
I’ll start with her middle name. It’s simple, boring and quite honestly, a name I don’t really like. It’s also my middle name. And my mother’s. I like tradition, and I like girls to have a meaningful middle name, so that when/if they get married and change their surname, they still have a connection to the family in their name. It was never really a question of if I would give the same middle name to my daughter, just a when. And because we didn’t give it to The Sunshine Princess (I didn’t like how it sounded with her name), we always knew that our second daughter, should we have one, would need a name that worked with my middle name. Sometimes I’m sad that the daughter that shares my middle name is not alive to carry on the tradition, and I will be honoured if instead one of my living daughters chooses to use it for their own daughter, should ever they have one, but sometimes I’m also glad that I share something so special with my passed daughter, who isn’t alive for me to share anything else with. It’s like it’s a little extra connection between us, something I don’t have with the other girls, who I can parent physically, every day. I like that when I write down her full name, I see a bit of me and my mother. She took it with her, but it lives with us, and it’s another way I can carry her.
Her middle name is Jane.
Her first name was picked before I was even pregnant with her. It came from a variation on names that I liked that The Husband didn’t, it was the compromise name. Our girls all have slightly unusual names, names that are never in the top 100 (that’s actually a prerequisite) but are not outrageously strange. Our names are also top secret until our babies are born, so it was strange announcing her name before she arrived, as we did when we told family her death was imminent.
Before I was pregnant with The Angel Princess, I actually wasn’t convinced that her name was the name we would definitely use, and I had told it to a few friends, to seek their opinions. When I found out I was pregnant, I was immediately convinced I was having a girl, and when we were on holidays when I was just 5 weeks pregnant, and we randomly drove down a street bearing her name, I text one of my friends about it. “It’s a sign!” I said. “It’s going to be a girl and that will be her name!”
It was strange I knew so early on, because at that point, I was still writing lists of baby names. With The Sunshine and The Rainbow, the instant I came up with their names (yes, The Husband still holds it against me that I have picked all the girls names) I fell completely in love with them, and couldn’t even consider any other names. With The Angel Princess, it wasn’t the same. I liked her name, but I was still not completely sold. Something about it didn’t sit properly. I even remember saying to a friend it would be her name, “only if we don’t think of anything better”. We officially named her as soon as we find out she would die, there was no more time to be thinking about choosing names, and it became the most tragically perfect name.
The Angel Princess’s name is also the name of a particular patten, commonly a fabric pattern, but also seen in a lot of print. This was something I didn’t realise when we first chose it. I certainly didn’t make the connection between her name, the design of the pattern, and the meaning of her name. 2 days before she was born, I decided to look up her name, to find out the meaning. I was completely dumbfounded when I discovered that her name meaning had one simple word: teardrop. That was the moment I fell in love with her name. My tiny teardrop. The baby I would shed a million tears for had the perfect name before she was even conceived. Her name matched her fate, long before we could have even imagined the path she would take us on. How could we have chosen so perfectly, without ever knowing. It actually hurt, just how coincidental it was. What if we had picked a name that meant great health? Or did I really, somehow, know her all along?
Since her passing, her name has brought me great comfort. I don’t much believe in signs, or spirits, but, this, it’s how I find her. The pattern she is named for is everywhere. She is everywhere. Half the clothes in my wardrobe are her pattern. My wallet, phone case, nappy bag, the pram blanket, are all her patten. The Sunshine and The Rainbow wear her patten. We put a present for each of us with her name on it each year under the Christmas tree, clothes in her patten. We do the same for our birthdays. I am rarely without something that bears her symbol. We used it on her memorial cards. My friends notice it, and wear it, and buy it for me. They send me photos of it on different things. When I need to see her, she is on the skirt of the person next to me at the shops. On a bad morning she appears on my chiropractor’s shirt. If I compliment you on the same mug every time I’m at your house, chances are it’s her patten on it. If a compliment your clothing and you think it’s a little strange, look closely at what you’re wearing. It’s probably hers. I notice her everywhere. Every day.
She has a symbol. She is represented in the strangest, most bizarre, most comforting way. All because of a name we picked without knowing how ever present it would be. A name with a meaning that might have been strange if she lived. Of all my daughters’ names, hers is my favourite. It has so much meaning, and it is has helped me find beauty on the darkest of days in grief. It is more beautiful, and more perfect then I could have hoped.
Her name is Paisley.
Paisley Jane.
My Tiny Teardrop.
The back of her memorial card.
Painting The House Pink 