Eli is actually taking a nap at the moment so I have a minute to write down the story of how we came up with his name. With all the sleep deprivation killing my brain cells, I figure I ought to do it now before he has to do some school project about it when he’s fourteen and my answer is, “I can’t remember.”
In any case, Ryan and I came up with lots of possible names for the baby if it was a girl and came to a decision fairly quickly. There wasn’t a single name we could agree on if it was a boy so we just hoped it was a girl. But then we went to our 20-week ultrasound and found out that unless we worked something out in the next few months, we’d have to name our baby something like Nomad Barnacle. (This, of course, being a completely valid suggestion from a baby-naming contest participated in by people who have known me since I was born.)
I liked Levi, to be named after the character Levin in my favorite book Anna Karenina. Ryan said no on account of the jeans. Ryan liked Damien because it sounded cool but I nixed it because of The Omen. We both liked Tobin but didn’t want our son to get an Indiana Jones complex because we already had a dog named Toby. I almost got Ryan to agree to Kellen James but he decided it might look like we were really into alcohol. (Killian Jim Beams!) Good thing we went in another direction because my cousin Ryan and his wife are expecting their second child, a son who they are naming Kellen James. Fortunately, it doesn’t have the same connotation with their last name.
So we finally came up with Eli. It was traditional but not super-popular, and relatively unique but not weird. Neither of us wanted to go with Elijah or Elisha, though, but still wanted Eli to have a first name that sounded good when we yelled it up the stairs because he didn’t come down for dinner the first few times when we just called him “Eli.” After looking through bunches of baby name books and websites we discovered Ellison. One of Ryan’s favorite authors is Ralph Ellison, who wrote Invisible Man. When Ryan and I first started hanging out in college, Invisible Man was the first book he recommended to me. I hadn’t read it even though I was an English major; I loved it. We had many late-night discussions about things Ellison brings up in Invisible Man and since it meant so much to both of us, it was perfect.
Now on to the middle name. We went back and forth about a number of names, as I really wanted Eli’s middle name to honor someone who one of us knew. Around Thanksgiving Ryan brought up the name Andrew and I realized we could name Eli after my friend Andrea.
Andrea and I went to high school together; she was the kind of person I wanted to be. She was the epitome of being beautiful, inside and out – the kind of lovely that I almost wanted to hate because I wasn’t anywhere close, but that I couldn’t because I just wanted to be around her. She truly loved people and fought for justice on behalf of those who couldn’t fight for themselves, including me. When I was battling depression during my senior year, Andrea was always quick to remind me about what the truth was during moments where I couldn’t recognize it. On a more global scale Andrea moved to Chile to be a human rights activist. She saw a need and didn’t just talk about it: she did something. In 2008, Andrea passed away unexpectedly from carbon monoxide poisoning in Chile, the night before she was to return home to Indiana. I was even more devastated than I thought I would be to learn of her death. It just seemed such an awful thing to have to live in a world without her.
But I know that I don’t have to. The impact she made in my life, and in the lives of undoubtedly thousands around the world, still inspires me to to be a better human being, to strike at the heart of injustice, to seek the truth, and to love more. Even though I am ever saddened that won’t see those stunning blue eyes again in this life, I am changed because I knew Andrea. I am looking forward to telling Eli about his namesake, and pray that she watches over him and that he hears in her life a call to be the best man he can be.
