At the End of the Rainbow

We always knew if I had a girl, her middle name would be Mim, but it was a few weeks until the end of my pregnancy, and we still hadn't settled on a first name. There was Esme and Frances and Alice (and Diamond, thank you Cass), but for various reasons, they weren't quite right. One had already been taken. Another provided too much room for mispronunciation. They didn't slip out of my mouth the right way. There was no flutter.

We drove by this Iris farm Up North on the most glorious early summer day. I had no idea it was there, and looking through the window, it felt like we had entered a magical painting. One of a highly saturated field of flowers and old barns climbing with ivy. Instinctively, Ryan slowed the car to a stop, and I got out to take a closer look. I half-expected to see fairies floating over flower tops. We still hadn't thought of Iris as a name.

Later that same week, three-fourths of the way through our favorite thick book of Greek Myths, we read a passage about Iris-- the messenger of the Gods, the personification of the rainbow. Using rainbows to travel from Olympus to earth and back, she delivers news, traveling with the speed of wind, linking the Gods to humanity.

That night, I sat up in bed and said "Iris" out loud. I poked a sleeping Ryan's shoulder and whispered the name to him. He smiled, half asleep, and mumbled something about loving it.

Just a few days before she was born, we saw two rainbows. One was a double rainbow. I knew she was on her way. I knew her name was Iris.