The story of Lily

This is the totally 100% true story of my daughter, Lily Elaine Brooks.

It was July 2002.

Shawn and I had been married for 9 years.  We had owned a business together for 5 years.  Our son was 10 months.  And Shawn had been white-knuckling sobriety for 3 months.
 
We knew we wanted to have a second child.  We thought about 2 years apart would be just perfect.  It had taken us about 7 months to get pregnant the first time and so we assumed it would be about the same the second time.

Three weeks after we started "trying" and one week after closing on a house up the street from where we were currently living I was struck with the thought, "I'm pregnant with a girl"  Add in the fact that my right eye had started to twitch - just as it did my entire first pregnancy - and I became firm in my statements to Shawn, "I think I'm pregnant and it is a girl".  So strong in this belief was I that I avoided all the chemicals being used to paint and make changes in the new house, much to Shawn's annoyance.  And yet I was adamant in my thought of, "NO.  The time is not right.  It is too soon.  We are just moving.  Our lives are too unsettled."

The night we settled into our new home I put Lennon to bed and we decided to go walk around the 1/2 acre backyard of which we had just become the proud owners.  It was the mid-summer of what I recall as a wet year and the flowers were in full bloom.  As we strolled and inspected I stopped at the rose bushes and decided to pluck a petal for each person in our family to press in a book and remember our joy in the new home for years to come.

I carefully plucked the three petals and cupped them in my hand as we finished our walk.

When we got back on the deck I opened up my hand to find...

Four Rose Petals.

Not the three petals I had plucked.  But a 4th smaller petal laying there in my hand.

I shook my head and thought again, "NO!  It is too soon - the time is not right".

I kissed the petal and blew it off my hand with a wish for a little girl LATER - when the time was right.

And at that moment there was a sudden breeze from where there had been none.

And the petal came back and hit me in the stomach.

And then I knew.  I really am pregnant.

And yet it would be several more weeks before I could take the pregnancy test to confirm what I had known, quite possibly, from the moment of her conception.

Our reaction, and that of our family the morning we had confirmation was, "Oh MY God!"

It was so soon.  Lennon was just 11 months old.  What about the "guest room" that we never got to use?

Despite the panic - we were both excited.  Shawn gave me a hug goodbye and set out for a long bike ride.

Lennon and I were sitting on the floor in a sunny patch of the new bedroom while I folded clothes.  I was smiling and thought, "I wonder what we should name this little girl."

The answer that immediately came to me was...Lily...
Lily...
Lily...Elaine
Yes, Lily Elaine Brooks.  I like that.

Shawn returned home a few hours later and sought me out immediately.

He said, "While I was riding I suddenly thought of a name I like if the baby is a girl."

I told him, "So did I - what is the name you thought of?"

His reply...

Lily Elaine

I kid you not!

This was not a name we had discussed when I was pregnant with Lennon (my votes had been for Paisley, Caliope or Cadence).  And this well before the name Lily became as a common as, well, Jennifer.  We did know of anyone with a child named Lily, had never had a friend, aquaintance or co-worker with the name Lily.  As far as I know, the name had never been uttered in our home.

To be fair, Elaine is my Mom's first name and Lennon's middle name is Shawn's Mom's maiden name so there was some precedence for having a family name as the middle name but again...Elaine had never been previously discussed as a possible middle name for a Brooks child.

And yet, somehow, Shawn and I independently came up with the same first and middle name of a child that I had sensed within me from very shortly after she was conceived.

And a very special child she is, my Sweet Lily Elaine.  She loves for me to tell this story.  I swear I am not embellishing a single word of it, it all happened exactly as I described.

I am not a religious in the traditional sense.  I am not a person who believes in psychic abilities.  And yet here lies evidence that my daughter was known to me, by name, from the start.

I love her dearly.  I feel closer to her every day as I watch her mature and understand the world.  I have no doubts she will go far and do amazing things in this world.