WORDSthatSING: Behind the name: Sloan Lee

I am always so excited when we get to share our babies' names because it not only means they are here with us on the outside, but it is fun to finally get to share a name we thought so much about. Like I have said with my other children, I have wanted all their names to tell a story-- a story full of meaning and rich with heritage. I have always viewed their names as little time capsules they can carry with them all their lives.

Also, names are how Brent has reeled me back into talking about having another baby every time, and this time was no different. He knows me too well, and knows I enjoy this part too much ;).

And so this is the story of how Brent and I chose the name for our son:

Sloan Lee.

To fully share the meaning of his name though, we have to go back a few years: 32 years to be exact. A few days after April 14, 1986 when my parents brought me home from the hospital, just a bundle of pinking skin and dark hair, they brought me back to the very street I now live on with my family-- they brought me back to Sloan Street.

When Brent and I had the opportunity to move back to Missouri, we didn't just move back to my home town, but to the very street that had been an integral part of my childhood; to a home with walls I had laughed in as a child with neighbors who had become family. And then we started having babies and we brought our own babies back to their home on Sloan Street.

And people who live here, in the past week since we introduced our son Sloan to the world, have asked, "So you named him after a street?" And the short answer to that is yes, I guess. But the long answer to that-- the truer answer to that-- is no, we named him after a place that has made me, and has shaped our family. We named him after people that have lined this street in little homes filled with love. We named him after all the stories it holds for me and now us. So no, he is not named after a red brick street in a small town. He is named after so much more.

Thirty two years ago when my parents brought me home, the discontent and wailing baby that I was, they introduced me to my neighbors. All of them. Up and down the block and behind our home. Our neighbors knew us, and we knew them. When my mom needed an extra egg she could walk over to Yvonne's. When she needed a break from my squawking, she could holler at Bob who was one of the only ones who could calm me down. She knew Kelly would pop over if she needed to run an errand and leave us girls. When some kids eyed the bikes my sister and I had left in our front yard one night, Tom watched from behind his screen door to make sure the motion light would scare them away [and if it hadn't, then he would have]. And when our garage caught on fire one cold February night and the flames licked at and threatened our house, Keith grabbed his garden hose and jumped right into action while his wife, Billie, opened their kitchen to our worried and cold bodies. When I had chicken pox Joann let me borrow E.T. and Charlotte's Web from her extensive VHS collection. Jim was happy to field worried phone calls from my mom in the middle of the night as she asked for his pharmaceutical advice. Marge was always available for a great conversation on her front porch, and Janet let us have picnics under her large evergreen, its heavy branches closing around us as if we were in Narnia. My sister and I would visit "Grandma Till", who wasn't our grandma but whom we never referred to as anything else. I spent zero gas money on my first full time summer job by walking across the street and babysitting the daughters of a woman who babysat me. I could ride my bike down the street to the Pearl's and be welcomed with Oreos and lots of love.

Slowly our street changed. People moved. Kids graduated. Some funerals were attended. But I was made by its boundaries. In college I took a class called Literature of Place. And we studied the importance of place in a person's life-- how it shapes someone and changes someone and is forever a part of their heritage and makeup. And during that class I thought often of Sloan Street.

I never dreamed that nearly ten years after I moved away from it, I would be unloading a moving truck at a brick house where I had spent so many hours playing with neighbors as a child. We pushed some patio furniture into the backyard where Katie and Tobi and Kali and I had played until dinner was called. And as we unloaded that moving truck, a 90 year old Yvonne shuffled over carrying a hot cherry pie to welcome us. She came to the back door, because that's what you do when you've been a neighbor to someone your entire life. A couple years later, an 80 year old Keith crept into our crawl space to see what was causing some water drainage before we got home. Later we brought our own babies home to that house, and Yvonne brought a gift, and later Keith wooed them with chocolate as he had done for kids for years. The funeral home sits just two doors down from the house where I grew up, and right next door to Keith's. So it was appropriate that, a few years later, to bid him farewell we just slipped on our coats and walked right up the street as if we were paying him another visit.

Now our girls know this street like I did. They walk to the corner holding hands and waving at neighbors. They popped over to see a goat next door, and they sat on the front stoop while Lacey painted their nails. They sat mesmerized watching Serenity practice her flag routines in her front yard. They wave down Janet for snacks, pet Joann's dog when she walks by in the evenings, and welcomed the Easter baskets from James and Connie. They don't know that across the street the small handprints on the garage floor are mine, or that I used to sit in the lilac bush in the front yard reading. And they don't know how many times Kali and I sped down this old brick street on bike rides until dusk, stone cold hands gripping bars in defiance of the setting sun.

This place has taught us all about loving our neighbor; it has taught us how to put out fires and welcome babies.

And that is why we have a son named Sloan.

His middle name, Lee, is from his Papa. My dad's middle name is Lee. Blythe was given my mom's middle name, Becks was named after Brent's dad, and Nan has Brent's mom's middle name. We knew, especially if we had a son, that we wanted to name him after my dad in some way. So Lee it was.

Lee is a family name for several generations, rich in good, kind men.

Lee means "meadow, or forest clearing." I was thinking about that the other day and it felt so appropriate: our journey to Sloan Lee, to holding him in our arms, took us to the wilderness a few times. And when they placed him in our arms, it was much like that moment you step from the darkness of the woods into a clearing, full of loose air and light. And we pray that he continues to be that for our family, and for others he meets.

Sloan means "warrior", and we pray he will be known for being a warrior of Christ. That he will remind us that the victory is ours because we believe Jesus is the Son of God. And we pray that he will claim this victory in his life.

We love you so much already, Sloan Lee*, and we can't wait to see how the story of your life unfolds. May you love fully like the man you were named after, and may you be a place that always feels like home to those in your life, creating a rich heritage for those who come behind you. We are so thankful you're our son.

This afghan was actually made by my old, Sloan-street-neighbor Marge, who gave it to my Grandma Schoon who kept it by her chair for when she got chilly. And the cradle was made by my Grandpa A.J.

*Brent jokingly said that his name is also because he's the "Sloan-Lee" boy in our family ;)

Story behind BLYTHE KATHLEEN

Story behind BECKS LYNAE

Story behind NAN LOUISE

And stay tuned. Someday I hope to get his birth story written.