My Name is Asher Lev...

I absolutely loved the book, "My Name is Asher Lev," when I read it in high school. I loved the name Asher and kept it on my "Possible Names for Children List" that I added to throughout my life. Our Asher was extremely close to being an Owen. It was two days before he was born that I was talking with my neighbor. I was telling her we thought we were going to name the baby Owen, but we still weren't 100 percent. Shannon mentioned that she was just preparing a lesson for her Sunday School class about the Twelve Tribes of Israel and really liked the name Asher. I hadn't had Asher at the top of my "P.N.F.C.L.", but as soon as she mentioned it, my love for the name that I had in high school came back and obviously kicked Owen out of the top spot. It was confirmed again when I looked up the meaning of the name and found out it meant "happy" and "blessed." Who doesn't want to be Happy and Blessed?!?! Although Oakley was a bit confused the first few days after Asher was born and kept asking, "But where's Owen?", we certainly couldn't imagine our Asher with any other name. Since it had been so long since I'd read, "My Name is Asher Lev," I decided to order a copy that I could read and keep in our family library. It was to my great joy when I found a collectors copy that the author, Chiam Potok, had signed! I don't know why I like the book more knowing that Chiam Potok had actually handled it and signed his name, but I do. Hopefully Asher will appreciate it, too, one day when he's old enough to read it. Happy and Blessed... hopefully we all have at least some of it in our lives regardless of our name.