Lula Josephine DiMeola 💗🥹🎀✨

Lula, the baby we know was sent to us directly from the arms of my Grandpa, fresh from heaven’s newest member. Every step of the way this pregnancy she defied the odds and caused us to shrug our shoulders and say, “I mean, I guess it’s another miracle?”. Because nothing else made sense.

We saw signs from him the entire time, so we knew we wanted to name this baby for him in some way. Right before they went in to get her they did some sort of instrument count and yelled out the number 23 in that cold stark operating room and it was the final confirmation he was there with us. (That number is my ultimate sign for my grandpa as he died in 2023 with 23 grandkids and 23 great grandkids.) And what better way to honor my grandpa who shaped my entire life than to name our baby girl after the woman who most shaped his.

Lula was my grandpa’s grandma’s name. She raised him a large part of his life and was the original hustler in their family, starting her own business decades ago cleaning the habits of the nuns who worked at the hospital in our hometown. She was tiny and dark complected, never sat in a chair. She took my grandpa to church every Sunday morning and he learned a lot of what he taught us about work and life from her. He used to talk to me about her all the time and at the end of every story he would smile with that cigar in his mouth and say, “Mally you know what her name was, her name was Luuula” and would let roll off his tongue and get tangled up in a belly laugh on the way out. He would beam from ear to ear when he talked about her. Like we all do about him. She was his calm in the storm that his life was a lot of the time, his safe place, his hero. My grandma said yesterday she was the love of his life. And now our little Lula is carrying on the legacy of our hero’s hero. And what an energy to carry on.

Then Josephine, we actually changed our mind on her middle name yesterday because our original choice felt a little too made up and not right for her. With the weight of Lula it felt imbalanced to give her a middle name picked from the sky. So we went all in and gave her my mom’s grandma’s name as a middle name for some double grandma energy and it feels absolutely perfect. Josephine was the name they almost named me and I always thought it was a cool name because of how my mom described her grandma Mary Josephine. My mom said she always had tons of pies lined up on a table on her back porch, all with perfect meringue because she couldn’t stop baking. She made all our baby quilts and had chickens for the whole neighborhood in her backyard. She loved being a homemaker and used to get after my great great grandpa with a broom when he wouldn’t say the rosary with her or messed up her house. She was one of the original faith filled women in our family(the candle lighting came from this side of our family). And my mom adored her. Yesterday we looked up the meaning of Josephine and it was the final sign that this was meant to be because Josephine means “God will expand/he will add”. And he sure did after our toughest loss. He continues to pour abundance into our lives.

Also we came to find out that both of these names are on Kyle’s side of the family as well. His grandmas sister who is still living(Josephine) and his mom’s favorite aunt(Lula). So this felt very meant to be all around. We love her name and her so much 🥹.

Lula you’re the bow on our family, the cherry on top, the end of one era and the beginning of another and we cannot imagine our family without you now that we know you 🥹💗.