Why We Named Our First-Born Infinity

by John Ellis

Danita and I are frequently asked why we gave Infinity her name. Over the years we’ve truthfully confessed, “Well, while we were in a Barnes & Noble, we looked through a baby name book. The name Infinity, which we didn’t realize was considered a name, went well with the middle-name of Kye we’d already chosen.” That’s been our truth for the last almost 18 years. I now believe, mystically, that the true truth is far more robust and beautiful than that.

Infinity officially starts her senior year of high school on August 15, 2023, this Tuesday. Already, she’s been swept into the vortex of senior year activities; we’ve rarely seen her the last few weeks. Painting her parking spot in the school’s parking lot; getting her senior pictures taken combined with combing through old photos for the senior year photo collage; college essays and applications written and sent; her school’s senior retreat; parties and activities with her friends; working her first job. As off the charts as her current schedule has been, though, it’s only a taste of this coming year. The events and expectations for her senior year are exciting yet daunting. Paradoxically, this coming school year seems infinitely short and infinitely long.

Infinitely short and infinitely long. Just like the previous 18 years.

Almost 18 years ago exactly, which is as current in my memory as yesterday is yet seemingly multiple lifetimes ago, after a pregnant Danita had gone to bed, I sat on our apartment’s balcony and allowed myself to finally think about what becoming a father meant. My thoughts terrified me. For the first time, I confronted myself with the fact that I didn’t know what I was doing. How could I be a father of another human being? How was I supposed to do this when I didn’t even know what this was. I remember crying as I became overwhelmed at the coming responsibility, my utter lack of comprehension and skill, and the belief that I would fail.

If I could go back in time, I’d say to my scared self, “Dude, by all means cry. Let it out. But know that your soon to be daughter’s awesomeness is going to swamp and sink your glaring deficiencies as a father. All you gotta do is just love her and encourage her to explore beyond your limited perspective. She’ll see the world in ways that you can’t possibly imagine but in ways that will enable her to make her way through it beautifully as long you don’t obstruct her view.”

You see, parenting is a mystery that scoffs at formulaic mommy blogs and parenting books. Love, listening, courage, humility, and a willingness to continue stepping into the unknown without seeing where you’re stepping are the keys. Really, the ONLY keys, and I stand by that. Anything or anyone that/who proudly huffs “fill-in-the-blank is what it takes to be a good parent” should be ignored. More than ignored. Scorned. And then ignored. They should be viewed as a potential protagonist in a play written by Sophocles. Their hamartia is a weighty scourge on countless stressed out, weeping parents trying to live up to a faux ideal.

18 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing and still don’t, and that’s the point. The moral. I don’t want to know what I’m doing because that would mean that I would likely fail to see the beauty in all the moments of Infinity. Likewise, my “knowledge” would compel me to force my own voice to a volume that threatens to drown out the voice of Infinity. You see, there’s a connection with my eldest daughter – as well as my other two children – that calls me to peer into infinity. There’s something transcendent about human relationships, even more so between parent and child. This calls for humility, not control. Attempts to unpack and arrange that transcendence into marketable action steps reduces the infinite to the finite. Parenting as capitalism/consumerism is as imminent, dry, and dusty a framework as you can get.

Burn your parenting books. You don’t want to know how to parent, and you don’t need to know.

Parenting is a paradox. It embodies a love that is so profoundly deep that no eye can hear, and no ear can see it in its fullness. It’s a bottomless comprehension. How else, for example, to explain the experience of all parents whose love has been articulated at times by a hurt that fails to draw breath. You want to know a paradox? It’s my oldest child’s senior year of high school. In about 11 or 12 months, Infinity will leave. I already know that I will miss her terribly beyond comprehension. That pain will be real, both emotionally and physically. But I also know that I will rejoice with my entire being that she’s taking unknown steps down one of her infinite paths.

I have loved Infinity (still do). Fiercely yet gently. Confidently yet often drowning in fear. Unhelpfully yet perfectly. I love her paradoxically because that’s the only way parents should love their children. Parenting is a synonym for mystery and surprise.  

I used to love squatting beside Infinity as she fed the ducks. But I never told her the correct way to feed – how to relate – to the ducks. That’s between her and the ducks. Other times, many times, I asked her, “what does a lion say?” And then, “what does a happy lion say?” Followed by, “what does a sad lion say?” I didn’t care what her happy or sad lion said. I only cared that she saw them and allowed them to have a voice. The willingness to truly play takes courage because true play embraces mystery, just like parenting.

My firstborn has infinite pathways before her. She has her limits, of course, like all of us, but those limits only serve to highlight the infinite paths that lie before her. If that’s paradoxical, I ain’t mad about it.

In 2016, Infinity told me that she didn’t want Hillary Clinton to win the presidential election because she wants to be the first female president. While the specifics have changed, that’s not what’s most important about how her drive has changed.

No longer concerned with self-aggrandizing political aspirations (ALL political aspirations are self-aggrandizing), Infinity has come to embrace the reality that her value is found in a field that pushes back on the hubris of humanity’s belief that we are God. She wants to climb down the steps of Babel, not up.

Not content to stoop to trudging the self-serving halls of power in D.C., she sees, feels, and understands the reality that her true imprint lies beyond the horizon of personal pursuits. Honoring the original commission from God to selflessly steward and serve His creation, and in doing so serve Him, Infinity is determined to find ways to protect God’s beautiful and important creation of the reefs. That calling is an infinite call. An echo of the good of the Garden of Eden. A deep shadow of what it truly means to be made in God’s image. Making money and building personal wealth is the devil’s work. It’s the work of Babel. It’s a finite work that brings death. My daughter, guided by the Spirit, is banking infinite worth for all of us by serving the world God has placed her in, a motivation and actions that bring life.  

But about the name Infinity.   

The word infinity reflects the journey we’ve traversed as parents. In the grand scheme of things, 18 years is a blip on history’s timeline. On the timeline of parenting, 18 years is multiple lifetimes – for the child and the parents. Squatting beside her as she fed the ducks was a moment in time that reveals the larger picture of infinite time. That moment continues to live in her and in me. And it’s a moment that’s expanding in meaning. Parenting is supposed to be immune to the second law of thermodynamics. The universe was originally intended to expand for infinity. Parenting should.

So, why did we name our firstborn Infinity? Because she has taught and continues to teach us what infinity feels like. We just didn’t realize that in 2005 while flipping through the pages of a baby name book in a Barnes & Noble.