Donna Marie

catherine-

hey little one=) i wanted to tell you about daddy’s mom. she was the most amazing woman! i remember before your daddy and i even started dating, i felt like the davis family was legendary in a way (i know that sounds so silly) and i had heard so many wonderful things about his parents. i remember being nervous hanging around them at first-i had never really been insecure with parents but i just thought so much of them it made me feel out of sorts! anyway-that’s also a reason i was so attracted to your daddy so quickly. i saw what his parents were like, knew what he was rooted in, knew he would be such an amazing daddy to you and your brothers and sisters one day…

we had gone to the same church for a few years and i had gotten to know them all little by little-i’d known that his mom had been battling cancer and one day i had lunch at their house after church (i think it was as his sister’s friend-i had been leading her cell group-but your daddy was the one that invited me and i remember being giddy excited about that)…so your sweet grandma donna had taken her wig off once we’d gotten to their house and she had such a wonderful soft fuzzy head with some hair growing back! she was so graceful in that battle-i remember hearing her expressing some confusion too over whether or not to expect a miracle from God, but that her biggest prayer was for God to do whatever would bring Him the most glory…that prayer resonates in my head so often now-it truly is my heart-i know that’s only going to get harder to say and think and feel as you get bigger and it gets closer to delivery time and potentially the time we will lose you-but i’m so thankful she paved the way for us in that prayer.

daddy and i started dating a few months after her cancer had come back. i remember once they knew it wouldn’t be much longer, daddy’s parents called us all in there to talk about what the doctors had said to expect…i was so thankful to be able to walk through that journey with your daddy and to be able to get to know his sweet mama a little better for those few months. her goal was to see aunt nikki, her youngest child, graduate from high school. she did indeed see her graduate, and she died june 13 that year. that was such a sad time…even when you expect and “prepare for” the death of a loved one, it never really helps, sweet girl. that scares me for what we have in store.

however…that does bring me to a fun topic: your name=) daddy and I could never agree on a boy name, but the girl name was always emerson kate. (daddy and his daddy’s middle name is emerson, and he and my parents call me kate, so we thought it was a fun combination of both of us) well now it looks like your little sister will have to take that name, because as soon as your daddy saw you on the first ultrasound screen, he said “what do you want to name her?” which made me think “ok, i guess he’s changed his mind about emerson kate…” and i said “i don’t know-what do you want to name her?” and without hesitating he said “catherine”…..i said ok=) i figured if he felt strongly about something then who was I to mess with that?? =) i thought catherine was a beautiful name--simple, classic, elegant-it seemed to fit the trend of our taste=) then for a middle name. before she married your granddaddy, your daddy’s mom’s name was donna marie hall. i knew in the past that he’d had mixed feelings about naming one of our children after his mom (especially hall, which was my pick for a boy’s middle name), but i asked him what about marie for your middle name…and he said he liked it. it’s been a strange comforting factor in all of this-knowing that if we don’t get you for very long, you get to hang out with his mom in heaven…it’s such a fun picture to imagine you two sitting up there reading a book under a tree and her getting to know her sweet granddaughter. i know she was so sad she’d never get to meet any of her grandchildren here on earth. so anyway-that’s how marie became your middle name and it makes our hearts happy=) we hope you like it sweet girl, and we’re so excited for you to meet her.

i love you,

mommy