Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Namesake

As the spouse of a BYU MBA student, we get to do a lot of cool things.  One is participate with the National Advisory Council (NAC).  They had a luncheon last Friday that included a wonderful speaker, Virginia Pearce. She is the daughter of our late Prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley.  I will go into what she spoke of in a later post, but just the fact that I was in the same "room" (we were outside) as her was incredible.  I really loved President Hinckley.  I felt like he understood and loved the youth of the church...back when I was a youth! He made such an impact on my life that I named my firstborn son after him: Ashton Hinckley. 
It is funny how things come together.  For school, Ashton had to find out why he was named what he was.  I told him about President Hinckley and how much Daddy and I loved him, even though we never met him.  We told him he was a wonderful and spiritual man.  He was funny, silly and so in love with his wife, Marjorie.  He was well spoken and respectful of others, especially those in the media.  Ashton enjoyed hearing about this and was able to share what he could remember about the man he was named after.  The next day, to my surprise, I met President Hinckley's daughter.  As cheesy as it may sound, I told her that I admired her father and named our son after him.  She was grateful and gracious showing the slight sorrow of a daughter who missed her dad.  She signed my book and took a picture with me.  She is the closest I will have ever gotten to President Hinckley.  It just goes to show that you can leave a great legacy.  It is just a great a privilege to meet a child/grandaughter/etc. of a greatly loved person.
I think it is important to have something to live up to- to not taint your namesake- to make them proud and be proud of your origins.


Mine isn't that cool- my parents named me after an actress they liked.....if you know me, I am extremely shy in public- so there goes that namesake!
Who are you guys named after?

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