June 19, 2020 (Friday)

June 19 has been special in our family for 86 years; it is the birthday of Elva Mae and Melva Fay, my twin sisters. They were born in 1934.

Sadly, Melva passed away last year. She and Elva were not identical twins, but they were very close, and the loss of Melva has been very hard for Elva. They spoke with each other every day on the telephone and visited each other as often as possible.

Today is Elva’s birthday. Please say a prayer for her today. This is the first birthday since Melva’s death. We have all missed her winning smile and sweet ways, but Elva’s loss is different from ours.

Twins run in our family. My grandmother, Mary Gladys Ross Lowe, had a brother Ed, and sister Edna, who were fraternal twins. Her grandchildren. Melva and Elva, were twins. And her great grandson, Dan Fake, would have been father of twins, but, sadly, Amanda, Angela’s twin, died in the womb. The next generation to have twins will be my great grandchildren and so far, there is only one person, Claire, in that generation. She is 6 years old.

When Elva and Melva were little guys, they learned each other’s name. When Elva said “Melva Fay,” it came out “Pay Pay.” My father called her by that name as long as he lived. Back in those days, it seems everyone went by their first and second names, pronounced as one name. So I was “Charles Forest” to many people before Facebook assigned that name to me. For many years, the twins went by their first and second names, Elva May and Melva Fay. In fact, sometimes I still use those names. Old habits.

Names are sometimes interesting. My sister, Brenda, was known as Brenda Joyce as she was growing up. For some it’s still Brenda Joyce. My brother, Joe, who now prefers to be known as Joseph, was named after his father, and grandfather, and so his full name is Joseph Herman Heim, III. But we called him “Little Joe” until he was old enough to be called “Joe.” Even then, so we could make clear which one we were talking about, we called him “Little Joe” and referred to his father as “Big Joe.” We called mother’s parents “Big Dad” and “Mama.” We called Daddy’s parents “Papa” and “Grandma Fake.” My grandfather called my mother “P-Hick” and why I don’t know. He had a nickname for everyone and everything. But as far as I know, he called each of his sons “Son.”

We had five children. Each of them has a name that begins with “D.” That was not planned in the beginning. When the first child was on his way, we thought of Bible names, David or Deborah. So he became David. But actually, we intended to call him by his middle name, “Gregory,” which we planned to shorten to “Gregg.” Daniel’s middle name is Jeffery, and we planned on calling him “Jeff,” but their first names stuck. And “Danny” became “Dan.” We called our first daughter “Deborah Lynn,” until the “Lynn” was dropped and “Debbie” took the place of Deborah. When Dianna was born, we named her “Dianna Dale” and for a while called her “Deedee.” But “Dianna” prevailed, although a few of her oldest friends still call her “Deedee.” Dwight is not a Biblical name, but he was named after the Best Man at our wedding who became a foreign missionary. His middle name is the same as mine, and Wanda is responsible for that. I’ll probably resume this subject at a later date, when we can discuss the names of our 9 grandchildren.