Spiritual Sunday- My Daughter Ave

I feel so blessed in life.  I have my health, the love of my life and two beautiful children.  I thank God everyday for trusting me enough to send us two little angel to love and cherish. 

Ave Marie has long been a favorite song of mine, for as long as I can remember.  When I was getting married and I told my mom that I wanted that played at my wedding, she was adamant that Ave Marie was for funerals, not marriage ceremonies.  I spoke with the Minister and he explained the “meaning” of that song in the most simple way.  He told me that Ave Maria is a call to God to intersect and give a “special” blessing through his loving mother.  Therefore, he said, it is a song of “re-birth, new beginnings and blessings”, completely and totally appropriate for a wedding. 

I had the most beautiful woman, with the most beautiful voice sing that on my wedding day...it is one of my most cherished memories of that day!  And who would have thought that our daughter’s name would be “born” as a result of that conversation with the Minister....

It was right after that discussion that I asked Dave what he thought of the name “Ave” for our daughter, should we have one.  Ave, pronounced Awe-Vay, is Latin and means “Hail” or “Holy Salutation”. He thought it was beautiful and we both thought about how “special” it would be to share our story of how she was named.  The story of how we called upon God for a sacred blessing on the day of the “birth of our union” and how we also called upon God for the same blessing for “her” on the day of her birth.  And so, as God would have it, we were blessed with our little baby girl and without a second thought or even a word mentioned, we named her Ave.

She is constantly being called AVE, as in the short form of Avenue or Ava (thinking I’ve misspelled it) and I know some may think that it was a silly-confusing name to call her, especially given some of the WILD names out there these days but at the very worst she’ll have to always be correcting people.  I  hope she will think that the lovely story she has to share when people do ask her about her name will outweigh the inconvenience of constantly having to correct people..only time will tell!

Allow me to leave you with what I think is the second best rendition of Ave Marie...the first was at my wedding!

Next Spiritual Sunday...My Precious Son Bryce!