The Story Behind My Son's Name

My husband, Jake, and I never intended for our first son to be named Gabriel. In fact we always thought we would name our first son after Jake's father, Anthony. Which coincidentally is my father's name as well. But then a very special person left us.

To understand how important this person was in our lives, you have to rewind to when Jake was a child. There was a new kid in school named Gabe and from day one, those two were inseparable. They were a pair. People didn't just refer to Jake or Gabe as individuals, they always referred to them together.

Unfortunately, Gabe didn't have the best upbringing and spent most of his days at Jake's house and Jake's parents embraced him with open arms. Gabe ended up living with that family on and off until he was an adult and Jake's family considered him part of the family. He even had his own stocking at Christmas!

Fast forward to September of 2019, Jake and I were both working in road construction. We were waiting for Gabe to finish with another job so he could come help us when all of the sudden, a dozen police cars and ambulances raced through our job. Everyone immediately new something bad had happened but we had no way of telling how devastating it would be.

About half an hour later, my boss comes to me and tells me to go find Jake. I did as I was told and was met with the news. Jakes 'brother' and our friend had been in a car accident.

A couple days had passed and Jake and I decided the best thing for us was to head home to Montana. On our drive, I looked at Jake and asked if we could name one of our sons Gabriel. We then decided our first son would be named Gabriel.

The next day while I was unpacking, I was experiencing some symptoms that could have been from my period or pregnancy so I decided to take a pregnancy test. I watched as this test developed two pink lines.

Jake and I now have the most beautiful baby boy.