"Che" for short.
That's her name and she is already so many things to me.
A mixture of Sarah and Micheal concocted by none other than God reminds me of my favorite prophet Jeremiah ... who my son Jeremy is named after ... was told by God, "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you."
Isn't it just like God to always know?
Having a baby was the furthest thing from my mind. I've done my time having raised three and am now a full time consultant on three more.
Besides Jeremy's produced the first grandson so I already got a new baby!
Why do I need another?
You're too old! Why would you do that again? Don't you want to live life without those worries? Grandbabies are great because you can love them and leave them whenever you're ready.
God, the number of times I hear these things every damn day.
I don't care.
Sarah grows more beautiful with every passing day of pregnancy so every single day my breath is taken away again.
Of course she's grows more nutty every day so I try to nod and stay quite, backtrack on anything I happen to mistakenly say (which is pretty much everything), try to divert crisis by giving her anything she may want in advance and rub her feet.
It's all pretty jacked.
Then I see Che in an ultrasound ... dancing in real time ... waving ... brushing back her hair ... saying, "Hey Daddy."
I can't seem to locate words at an ultrasound sitting their staring at a miracle.
"Che" ... Clare Hope Elliott ... is Sarah's idea primarily because she needed something to go with the tattoo on her back ... "Joy" ... "Grace" ... "Love" ... the girls middle names.
Clare is a county in Ireland we fell in love when we were there and, having serious cases of "wanderlust", we hope our daughter makes it there one day because we passed it on just as "Elliott" was passed on to me.
Put the first letter of each together and you get "Che" ... one of my Heroes in life ... and I've been to Cuba tracking down his ghost.
"Is her nickname "Che" because she's been "revolutionary" in your life?" a friend of Sarah's asks.
I don't know Joshua but he's got a flair for understatement.
So my darling daughter, I whisper as I kiss your Momma's belly to kiss you this morning, let's get started shall we?
It's a quote from your namesake that, I like to think applies to me.
I know it's going to apply to you.
"Many will call me an adventurer, and that I am, only one of a different sort; one of those who risks his skin to prove his platitudes."
