I realize that in Life, some things are just unknowable. Certain aspects forever remain a mystery. Yet, four months after losing Christina, I still wonder. I wonder who she really was. I wonder, considering all the now-apparent foreshadowing, just how much is pre-ordained. I wonder if this truly was all "meant to be" or if there was some way it could've been avoided.
I suspect that Christina often felt like the Black Sheep of the family. She often said that she felt she was my least favorite child. I always disagreed. Christina was never that. But she seemed to identify most strongly with being the unloved child.
I have come to believe that I mis-named her; she was not ever truly Christina. Was she Katherine Elizabeth, as I intended to name her while pregnant? I'm not sure. In fact, I suspect she was not; when she was born and I looked at her, my first thought was that she was not who I expected and she was not, therefore, Katy Beth. But neither was she Christina Danielle. But who was she? Honestly, I do not know, and I fear that I may never know; but the closest I came to properly naming her was when I called her Tani. That is why I want to get a tattoo of an apple with "Tani" inscribed across it. It most truly reflects who she really was. She was my Tani Apple.
So I wonder then: Can mis-naming a child cause such lifelong stress? Can it cause them to struggle with their identity the way Christina struggled with hers? And, if that is possible, then doesn't that imply that when a child is born, they come into this world with an identity and it is up to the parents then to properly name them and recognize who they are??
That's a lot to expect from a new parent.
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