Saturday, March 17, 2012

Sweet Clementine


Clementine
Origin: French
Meaning: Merciful, Mild, Gentle

The thing about having such a vivid imaginations is that sometimes, just sometimes if you believe enough you can make the objects in your minds eye appear...and even closer, even more real. I'm not saying it is easy, It wasn't. I'm not saying it happens with every dream, it can't. But, sometimes, just sometimes you have to dare to believe. We did.

From the second I knew I was pregnant, I knew she was a girl. From the second I knew she was a girl, I knew her name.

Growing up I had a list of girl names I pinky swore with myself I'd use someday. I'd collected them, ranked them, scribbled them in the back covers of journals, Bailey, Eve, Georgia, Simone. All of which, eventually held a different formation, but completely ready-to-use as we drove to the delivery room to meet Sam and Peter. When we learned they were boys, I stashed them back in my journals for use at a later date...should we be so lucky.

We were.

Though unlike with Sam and Peter, Paul and I never discussed names, not for nine months, not for 41 weeks and not for those last very long and exhausting, three days. We never fished back into those journals and pulled back out our list of girl names. We only spoke once, briefly, when I shared my idea for her name with Paul. He nodded knowingly as if we had always known and that was it. We never spoke her name aloud, except to address her as "c" to each other, we signed our oath with imaginary pricks from our fingers and then out she came.


Sometimes, just sometimes you know. We did.



I don't know where I even heard it now. Certainly not on the streets of Brasilia and I most definitely wasn't listening for it way back in the fall of 2010 when we left the US for Brazil. I've never even met a Clementine.

Until now, and she is just as sweet as I imagined. The black black hair, the world's most decadent soft skin. Those lips, those eyes, I saw it all in my dreams. I can't say I was even surprised.

We call her Clementine and "Clem," for short, which was my Grandfather's brother's name. Either call to mind sunshine and a slow, charmed, gentle life. Lush trees, warm sunshine, perfect, vibrant fruit.

Her middle name is a variation of my Grandmother's name, Eva. The sweetest most wonderfully gentle woman I've ever met. She was filled with joy for simple pleasures in life, gardening, picky wild berries, baking pies and collecting sea glass from long morning walks on the beach with her family.

Enough said.

...and then a few weeks ago I began to search for a song, because every girl should have a song:




May we always have our Clementine.

2 comments:

AJ said...

Oh Elise you've done it again! Perfect Clementine. Congrats and may she always live up to the wonderful Eve we all knew and loved.

Dani said...

She is so beautiful and I love the name! It just fits her perfectly too, as if preordained. Some kids have to grow into their names but hers just fits. What a cutie! Hope you guys are getting a little bit of rest and that the boys are enjoying getting to know their little sister!