My Little Rose

We’ve decided on Julia Rosaleen Kelly. Rosaleen is (allegedly) an Anglicized version of the Irish Roisin (pronounced “ro-sheen”). I’m not so sure about that, though. The name Rosaleen first appeared in Ireland in the sixteenth century – about the same time as the English poet Spenser first mentioned his aloof love, Rosalind. From what I’ve read, Rosalind was a name first used by Spenser.

Before going much further, I need to confess that I ended my Guinness boycott. I played soccer tonight. After the games, I like “two Guinness and a whiskey.” As I’ve said before, I’m going to write a song about it someday.

I need to do some more research, and maybe someday I’ll post an update, but, interestingly the patriotic poem “Dark Rosaleen” (allegedly translated from the Gaelic in the 19th century) mentions Spanish ale and Spenser spent time in Ireland in the sixteenth century at a time when the Spanish were funding the Irish in an effort to wreak havoc on their mutual enemy, the British. Someday, I’ll do some research on primary materials and have something to back up this.

Until then, we’re going with Julia Rosaleen. Personally, I don’t care for Julia. I like it. It’s nice. It’s okay. My wife loves it. She is the one with a huge stomach and sore feet, after all.

Rosaleen means “little rose.” It's a good nickname. With my son, he's got "the boy" (ala Bart and Homer Simpson) or "Deuce." I really felt uncomfortabe calling my daughter, "the girl." My "little rose" is pretty, don't you think?

My grandmother’s middle name was Rose. One of my first entries here was about my grandmother’s funeral.

This is the first Kelly girl in something like 90 years. My dad had a brother and his brother had three boys. I have two brothers. My grandfather (my Dad’s dad) had one sister. My grandfather just had nephews (as far as I know – there’s some sort of “black sheep” back there that I’m going to figure out someday).

My grandmother desperately wanted a girl. I was the first (and one of only two) grandsons (she has six total) to get married. She was thrilled to get a daughter-in-law. I think my Grammy may be my wife’s favorite family member simply because of the reception into the family.

Grammy’s great desire for a girl is what gave me hesitation in naming my daughter after her. A little background is necessary.

When I was born, my Grammy was still working as a secretary for Woodmen of the World. Someone gave her a wooden picture frame that consisted of letters spelling “Pride & Joy.” There was a baby picture of me in that frame. When I was at her house during the funeral time, that picture frame was still in the den.

I’m pretty sure I was her favorite. She told me as much. It’s okay for grandparents to have favorites. My brother was Grandpa Lunden’s favorite (at least of us 3 boys). Grandpa Lunden was my mother’s sister’s father-in-law. Technically not a grandparent, but we were fortunate enough to have three sets of grandparents.

When she was in the hospital, I sent her some roses. Her good friend, a Jesuit priest, visited her after she left the hospital. When I saw him at the funeral, he told me that his last conversation with her was about me. She said her “Pride and Joy” sent her those roses, and “it must have set him back $75 and he shouldn’t have done that.” It was only about $55 including delivery – oh, well.

When she got out of the hospital, Dad, her first-born, went to be with her. I had a bad feeling about that trip. I thought the bad feeling was simply that Dad would be faced with putting her in a care-home or something like that. She died a couple of days after he got there. She asked him to come earlier than he was planning to go. If he had gone with his original plan, he would have not been there for her. She always said she wanted to go in her home and that she did not want to go alone. She got both her wishes.

Pretty touching, right? What’s the problem? Why did you hesitate to name the first Kelly girl in 90 years after the woman that called you her “Pride & Joy?”

After we got out of the ultrasound for Deuce, we started calling family members. She was the third person we called – after my parents and my wife’s parents. When I told her I was having a boy she said, “Oh, honey, I was really wishing for a girl.”

I wanted to reach through the phone and slap her.

My first child and instead of being excited, she expressed disappointment. Looking back, part of my shock and anger was that this was the first time I really saw some of her flaws. No need to go into her flaws now, but the point is that I think she knocked herself off the pedestal I had put her on.

She had died about two weeks before we found out we were having a girl. Before Dad left for Kentucky to be with his mom, I told my wife that Grammy would stick around to see if we were having a girl. I thought she’d pass over some time after she’d seen this Kelly girl.

Last week, Dad brought back a pink afghan that she had knitted. She has, over the years, knitted many comfortable afghans for me and for her grandsons. She gave Deuce one, too. It was a little bit old – she had been holding on to it for a while.

I’m still mad at her for that phone call. It’s probably the worst thing she ever said to me. It is also probably the only negative thing that I can ever recall her doing to me. Because of that, it was probably one of the meanest things anyone’s ever said to me. And I don’t “see” where she was coming from. It was awful, it was selfish, and it was not borne out of love.

So she was flawed. She’s human. It still hurts me. But she’s my Prodigal Grammy, and I’m her “Pride & Joy.”