A rose by any other name.....

A few weeks ago, we were walking around our neighbourhood with our dog and I had ducked into a fair trade gift store to check it out. When I came out, my husband was introducing a little girl and her mother to our handsome black lab, Sampson. We chatted for a bit and then the woman called her little girl, Maya. My hubby commented that it was an unusual name these days and that it was beautiful, that we in fact wanted to use that name for our own child one day. And then he told the woman that we were "trying". I almost corrected him and then thought better of it. After they had moved on, I asked him what he was thinking. We weren't "trying", what was he thinking when he said that? And then he said, yeah, but we're adopting and we can name the child, right? But I explained that that name was no longer in consideration for a little girl. Why? Because that's the name of the little girl that I wanted to conceive and deliver. (In honour of Maya Angelou who is one of my heroines in life.) In my mind, that name was for that child. And that "child" is gone. I even wrote a letter to her. I was almost angry that he had even entertained that thought. It was almost like if we had had a daughter that died at birth, would we use that name again for the next child? He understood, but I was shaken for quite a while.

Now it seems that every child named Maya reminds me of a little girl I never had. So our child in the future - boy or girl - I can't even begin to wonder what I would name them. I just can't.