Journey with Julia

Julia and Julia



I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but have had a hard time finding the right words and the time to get them down. For those that don't know, I'll start at the very beginning. Many years ago when we were trying to conceive I had a conversation with Ray's Grandma, asking her permission to name my daughter after her. Ray and I had agreed almost from the time we met on what we wanted to name our little girl. Julia for his grandmother, Marie for mine. So years passed and so did our beloved Grandma but our dream for a daughter never did, not really. As we pursued our adoption we felt no reason to change the name we had picked out. If anything it seemed even more suited, we felt it would give our daughter ties to our family history and a sense of belonging. We didn't decide until we saw her face and her Chinese name that we would keep part of that too. We hadn't even talked about it but as soon as soon as we saw her name we agreed immediately on which part of her name to keep, even without knowing the meaning of it at the time. Some things are just meant to be.

I do feel that Julia is tied to her Great-Grandmother even though they never met. There are a few "Red threads" there all the same. For one I know that Grandma never stopped praying that we would be blessed with a child, though I'm sure she never imagined any more than we did how that blessing would take place. For another Julia was placed in our arms the day after what would have been Grandma's birthday that year. Close timing that and so of course we were thinking of her along with all of our extended family when Julia was placed in our arms. We knew they couldn't wait to hold her anymore than we had and how much they would love her.

Here recently, Julia was flipping through her Daddy's Bible. But she told me she was looking at her "Grandma's book". This caught me quite off guard as the only one we call Grandma in this family is the Grandma Julia is named for. We have other names for each respective grandparent.. G.G., Grammie, Great Grammie and of course Nai-Nai. What really struck me was the only one of them that I would consider especially attached to a Bible would have been Grandma. That is not to say the others have no faith or don't go to church, they've just never struck me as obvious and open about their faith. Nai-Nai to some degree yes, but not quite as much as her mom was. Even I tend to be more spiritual than religious these days. So do I think Julia is talking to Julia?? No not really. lol. But I do think Grandma sees her and I hope she makes her smile.

At the very least the little episode opened the door for me to talk more to Julia about God and the Bible. And maybe that's all it was supposed to do, that's always a good thing. But now you know where Julia's name came from and how much a part of this family she has been from day one. I hope and pray that as she grows and faces questions about her past she will understand it too.