Yesterday my sister Kori and her partner Matt gave birth to a beautiful 8-pound baby girl, Florence Leonie Baker in Los Angeles, California. Because of the current situation, only Kori and Matt were allowed in the hospital, leaving the rest of the family glued to screens in different corners of the United States. Thankfully, everything went well and both baby and mom are resting comfortably. We are trying to make the best of providing the in-person support so many first-time moms rely on via FaceTime and some app called Marco Polo.
It’s all super surreal. No other way to put it, really. Initially, Kori was even urged to wear a mask throughout the delivery (that lasted about one contraction). Hard to imagine a scenario like that just two months ago, but here we are.
Florence’s birth will forever mark this bizarre time, but her arrival has already been such an incredible jolt of positivity to our family. She’s my parents’ first grandchild, and, thanks to some clever work by the new parents, her name was the most beautiful surprise.
You see, Florence was the name of my great grandma, a lady most of us knew as “Grammy Moo-Cows,” as she lived her entire adult life helping operate a family dairy farm. But Florence was more than just a farmer in rural Maine. She was also the first woman in her family to go to college (in the 1910s, no less), and taught in a one-room schoolhouse for decades. She was an avid reader, and she drove well into her 90s (they took away her license after she flipped her car—twice). She also encouraged me to write. When she told me that I was a good writer, I didn’t believe her. But, when she told me to bring her all of my graded school papers for her review, I did. She may not have known it then, but her persistence gave me a confidence I never knew existed, and, in her own, gentle way, she pushed me to follow a path I’d never ever imagined (11-year-old me was destined to be a pro soccer player after all). She lived until she was 103, but her influence endures to this day. Not just in me, but in the dreams of dozens of great-grandchildren, grandchildren, and children that she fostered and encouraged.
Now that name lives on in my family’s newest generation, and I couldn’t be more proud of my sister and her partner for making it so. This little one might have a lot to live up to, but boy does she have a good head start, and a lot of hands to help her along the way. We love you, Baby Flo.