[January 1992]... This is going to take forever Abby says to herself as she lays in bed. I mean the doctor said bed rest and not to move around to much, but I cant do it anymore. "I demand my freedom." Abby says as she gets out of bed. She puts her slippers on and sneaks out of the bedroom to find some snacks in the kitchen. Trying to be as quiet as possible she makes her way out the door, down the hall and as soon as she steps in the kitchen she hears Sheila "Now girl, don't you remember what the doctor told you? Keep that butt of yours in bed." Sheila stands up from the living room walking to the kitchen. "How did you hear me mom? I was super quiet." "It was your belly baby. My little grand-daughter was yelling so loud I'm sure the neighbors heard her." Sheila responds with a laugh. "Well since you're here sit down and talk with me for a bit." Sheila helps Abby to the living room and helps her sit on the couch. "What kind of snacks do you want? You sit right there and I will go get them." Abby giggles and says "I want..." "Oh honey, I wasn't asking you. I was asking the baby." Abby shuts her mouth and looks up at her mom. at the same time they both say "Everything." Sheila laughs as she walks back to the kitchen to get all the snacks she could find. While walking back to the living room with the sugar and salty plunder, Sheila asks "I know we have had a very event past month, and we never got to go over the baby names. Tell me where the books at and I will grab it and we can go over the names together." Abby smiles and says that she put it on the bedside table of her room next to the lamp. Sheila stands up happy and giddy. "I can't wait to see what names you have thought of." She runs off to get the book while Abby stays in the living room.
Sheila returns with the book in hand. "Now baby, I never told you this but I had a hard time trying to figure out the name I wanted to give you when I was pregnant." Abby looks at her mom. "Really?" "Yes. I sure did. I couldn't make up my mind for the longest time and the next thing I know there I was in the hospital. I had just given birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl and the doctor looks up at me and asks for your name. "I thought long and hard and finally settled on Abby. It means to give joy. And that baby, is exactly what you did. You brought me so much joy." Sheila wipes a stray tear from her eye as she hold onto Abby's hand. Abby kisses her moms hand and tells her to open the book. Inside Sheila sees all kinds of drawings and doodles. "What are these?" Sheila asks. "Those are just little doodles I did while trying to come up with names, that's all." Sheila stared at the drawings. She noticed there was a massive old tree with many strong roots that wrap around each other. If she had to explain what it looked like, the Celtic tree of life is what comes to mind. On the next page there's several small drawings of what looks like a dog. Sometimes the dog is running, or laying down. The one that caught Sheila's attention was the wolf with his head pointed up at a moon. "Abby, where did you get the idea for the dog?" "Hmm, I'm not sure. I just picked the pencil up and away it went. When I was done drawing I looked at it and noticed that it was a wolf. It's strange though, I feel like I've seen both the tree and the wolf before." Sheila nods her head and continues to go through the pages. She looks at birds and different drawings of flowers and fish. Finally she gets to the list of baby names. "Agatha, Ayana, Beatrice, Briar, Bridget, Celeste, Constance, Elidi, Ember, Emily, Grace, Lorelei, Miriam, Nevaeh, Rose, and finally Willow." Sheila reads the names aloud. As she stares at the book she gets this feeling she can't explain. Her dream, it comes flooding back to her. Next to the name Willow she sees a small drawing of a dragon. Sheila thinks about it then looks to Abby. "What do you think?" Abby smiles with her hands on her belly. "I don't know. They are all names with good meanings and a lot of them just so happen to be the names of our ancestors." Abby exhales. "Well honey, you don't have to choose right now. Give it a little time and I'm sure the perfect name is here, you just have to give it a chance to show itself." Abby asks, "Hey, do you think we can try tea leaves to see if that gives us anymore of an idea of a name to choose?" Sheila nods, "That's a wonderful idea. I will get what we need." Sheila leaves the living room in search of the supplies she needs. In a couple minutes she comes back with a box of black tea, a teacup, an empty bowl and an electric tea kettle. She plugs the kettle in and waits for the water to boil. As they wait, Abby takes the tea leaves and pours some in the teacup. 5 minutes later the kettle goes off and then Sheila helps Abby to pour some in the teacup. "Now we have to let this sit here and steep for about 3 minutes." The 3 minutes it takes to steep Abby swirls the tea around in the cup. As soon as the 3 minutes are up, Abby dumps the tea into the empty bowl and looks at the leaves that has been left inside the cup. "Mom?" "Yes Abby. What is it?" "Does that look like a Willow tree to you?" Sheila leans over and looks. "It seems to me baby, you got your name. Willow Bennett."
