Ila Pearl - What's In A Name

I started this post when I was pregnant to explain ILA's name. I type ILA in caps so you can tell it is I-L-A... otherwise it looks weird.
Anyway...
ILA was my Grandma Mills' first name. Her middle name was Marie, which is also my middle name. I've always thought her first name was so pretty. In fact, Nate and I have had this picked out as a first name for a baby girl since before Brixton was born.
My Grandma Mills and I were always close. Her birthday was 4 days before mine and so we always celebrated together. 

She paid for my braces when I was a teenager, and through that process taught me a lot about managing money (she made me write the check for every payment every month and balance the account). I stayed with her for a summer in college while I worked at a camp for teens at the college in her town. As a kid my dad and I would always spend Memorial Day with her. We would go to my grandfather's grave and clean it and put out new flowers. I never knew him. He passed away shortly after my mom and dad got married. 

She's also the one who helped me when I got older and was considering a re-baptism. She helped me figure out if that was something I should or could do. 

She was beautiful and classy, tall and thin. I adored her, but the thing I admired most about her was her faith. 

She died shortly after Nate and I were engaged. She was in the hospital and I went to see her knowing it would likely be the last time. I was able to tell her about our engagement and show her my ring. Her approval was VERY important to me. I always wanted her to be proud of me and she always said she was. I've always wished that she could have seen me graduate college, but she went to Heaven the day my mom and I were supposed to go wedding dress shopping back in August 2003. I loved her dearly and still miss her. I hope to be like her and I hope my ILA will cherish her name.

I do have another grandmother, Grandma Hern, who is still alive and whom I also love dearly. I love that ILA has been able to meet her and to spend time with her. She is very dear to me as well, for many different reasons that I should write about another time. 

ILA's middle name is Pearl. This was just picked during my pregnancy. We had, for a long time, considered Grace as her middle name. Grace has been a big lesson we've learned about in our marriage. However, more recently it has become a very trendy little girl's name. We can't be too trendy (ha!) so we decided to go with something different. Pearl was a name we ran across and Nate just loved it. I thought it was cute at first but wasn't sure if it would stick. It did. Pearls are actually my favorite jewelry. I wear pearl earrings most days and have for years. I would love a pearl necklace of my own. I have a nice fake pearl necklace I wear a lot and I have a pearl necklace that my dad bought my Grandma Mills for Mother's Day decades ago. I don't wear it. It's too special.

Brixton was a little upset about her name. He REALLY wanted her to have a Bible name. His middle name is James. That's Nate's favorite book of the Bible. Brixton wanted the baby's name to be Sarai or Esther. He was disappointed but quickly accepted and shared her name with everyone. 

While she will never know her namesake ILA will definitely know the impact she had on my life.