Hazel 👼🏼

Father’s Day felt fitting to write this post. Our hearts grew bigger in November after finding out we were expecting. Despite losing having lost my grandpa to COVID just a month earlier. A child sent our way from my Grandpa. Today our hearts are still bigger but aching. Aching for the child that should be making an arrival in a month. You may not understand this post or even care. But I’m a talk my feelings out kind of person, perhaps that’s the extrovert in me.

I honestly thought we woud have another boy. It was something I predicted after I had Graham. Even after that child left us, I still believed it.

Until one night a few months ago. My grandpa was in my dream and he told me that he was now 97. He’s holding the hand of a little girl who is four. My grandpa was a few months shy of 92 when he died. Give or take the ages match up if time kept moving forward. I whole heartedly believe that he was holding our daughter’s hand. I get chills every time I think about it.

Lots of pregnancy loss resources suggest naming your child as a way to heal and move forward. How does one name a child you don’t know, met only briefly at the very end and was far too young to have a determined sex? I always thought well maybe down the line we would pick a name that we never ended up using.

Honestly the dream changed my feelings about this. For a child that has made such great impact on procedures for other loss parents, she deserves a name to be remembered by, even if only by us. I remember walking around the neighborhood in early December looking at Christmas lights with Graham discussing baby names. Hazel was a name we both liked. We added to our “list.” We decided we liked this name for her. Jeremiah has hazel eyes, maybe she did too. A wand of hazel symbolized protection and authority. She’s forever protecting us.

We recently visited the grave where Hazel’s momento is buried with other babies from the hospital. She may not physically be there but she’s defintely there. Forever in the Garden of Angels.