Joy Rising

Properly naming a Thai baby is a science that involves the exact birth time and planetary alignment, which will ultimately end up in some kind of calculation that will tell the person naming the kid which letters/vowels to use and which to avoid in order to allow the baby to prosper and reach his/her full potential. And it always has some kind of complicated meaning behind it. So imagine my parents' surprise when I told them that the baby was to be called, simply and beautifully, Chase. I was not one of those who knew all my life what I would name all my twelve kids since I was five. In fact, I barely gave it any thoughts since she didn't seem to mind being called "The Mutt" while in utero. I wasn't keen on girlie girl names because the meaning behind them were always "the beautiful one," "the fair one," or something of similar nature. I knew the baby I was carrying would be beautiful, but her looks alone would not be the most memorable and remarkable thing about her. My hope for the baby, whom never seemed to rest until the day she entered the world, was for her to know that, with hard work, she was capable of anything and everything. I hoped she would be kind, sweet, humble, and know her place in the world--know how lucky she was to be born into a loving family and still worked hard to pay it forward. I hoped she would be a healthy, happy, curious, vibrant little girl, who always carried a go-getter attitude and never gave up just because someone told her that she couldn't do it. I read somewhere that Chase meant "hunter" in old English and I thought it fit my Little Mutt to a T. These past 18 months have been the most extraordinary time. Chase is the light of my life and lately she's been my strength. The mischievous grin in her big brown eyes was really the only thing that kept me going all last week. I was watching Oprah the other day and one of her audience members used the term "joy rising" to describe his feeling about a flash mob in Chicago, and I thought it was such a fantastic and accurate way to articulate something indescribable. Joy rising is how I feel when I look at my baby--my little Hunter. It's been a really long time since I posted pictures of her, so here they all are. As always, put the cursor on the picture to see the caption, if you so choose.

Please continue to keep Wil in your thoughts and prayers. We go to Homburg tomorrow and hope to get a surgery date soon after that. I'll report back soon.