Her first name is Saira.
(Sie-ruh)
We began our name search with simple perimeters. We wanted her to have an easily pronounceable Indian name with a significant meaning.
We searched and searched. We created a short list and tested the options on friends and family.
Eventually we decided (Murali’s idea) to reverse engineer our search. In our shared iPhone Note, we made a list of values that we wanted her to emulate, and one rose to the top
Traveler.
We wish for her to cross boundaries and to graciously immerse herself among people in places that are near and far. We hope for her to embrace the rigors of living with vulnerability, fierceness and humility. We will love for her to say yes to adventure, to be the first to go there and do that, to blaze trails and to lead by example. We hope she will live each day demonstrating empathy and love wherever she goes.
That’s how we found Saira, which means traveler/wanderer in Hindi.
Her middle name is Loving.
There was no criteria.
It’s always been Loving.
It is to honor the courageous actions of an ordinary Virginian couple – Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and a black woman – who advocated for themselves, and subsequently my family, that they have the legal, civil right to marry in the United States – an act that was illegal in Virginia and in 16 other states, including Texas.
Fifty-one years ago today, on June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving vs Virginia that laws banning inter-ethnic marriages were invalidated.
Richard and Mildred Loving could return to their home state of Virginia to raise their children.
Murali and I could marry.
We could create Saira.
#nationallovingday
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