that which we call a rose pisses me right off

My parents both have fairly large, fertile families --> I have a lot of cousins, especially on my dad's side.  Most of them -- that is, all of them except my brother and me -- grew up in the same small, small town, went to school together, generally grew up together.  They are a tight-knit group of people, and we were always on the periphery.  We lived hours away, didn't fit well into the age- or gender-sorted comrade cliques, and didn't have a boat to take out on the beach (read: whereas the rest were burnished coppery-golden, we were more akin to...anemic marble).  We were close to each other, however.

My brother is dead now, and although my cousins have grown up and dispersed to different states, they still have the relationships forged during childhood, so now I'm the single black sheep at family holidays.  It's not nearly as isolating as it was in childhood, because we can all drink together, and they make an exemplary effort to include me.  But!

One of them named her baby after her dad (first name) and my brother (middle name); because my brother's middle name was after my uncle, her baby's name is my brother's middle and first names.  It was two years ago, but I recently became supremely pissed off about it.  I know I don't own the name, by any means, but that doesn't stop me from feeling possessive of it, especially since none of them was close to us and how dare she commandeer his name?  It's not like her life changed when he died.  She spends every spare moment she can with her brother, who. is. still. alive.  She hasn't worked for a decade-plus trying to come to terms with suicide, or felt someone missing at every significant milestone of her life.  In fact, to my knowledge, she hasn't had to deal with any remarkable hardships, including finding a grown-up job, or looking for housing, or worrying about money.  She just got married, moved back in with her parents, and started reproducing.  (I appreciate the challenges of SAHMotherhood, but doesn't compare to family tragedy or to forging through young adulthood as a recluse independent person.)  Probably none of that would bother me except WHAT THE FUCK DOES SHE KNOW and HOW DARE SHE STEAL HIS NAME.  Did it not occur to her that maybe, just maybe, I might consider it if/when I have children?

I've been thinking about it recently because I discovered that my parents have never met the kid.  Although I moved away from home and don't make it home for many holiday weekends, my parents usually do.  I was catching up with them and they mentioned that Girl Cousin is pregnant again, I exclaimed over how I'd yet to meet the first baby, and my mother said they hadn't, either.  He's almost two years old.  (As an aside, they're still living with her parents.  I don't think I could make all my babies in my parents' house.  That's just icky.)  So now I wonder if it occurred to her that maybe her blasé selection was hurtful to us, and maybe she's avoiding us meeting her baby.  Or maybe I'm just that narcissistic that other people's children's names revolve around me and my family and our personal history.  I was really disappointed in my therapist when she insisted that my brother's death is behind my depression because I spent YEARS working through it (besides, lady, I was depressed WAYYYY before that), but maybe what remains is issues about its lesser impact on other people.  Especially people who weren't even involved, weren't hardly affected, didn't qualify for naming rights.

I like Girl Cousin.  She's a genuinely thoughtful, charming person.  I hope this doesn't affect our future relationship, and I hope she doesn't ever stumble across this blog.  (Girl Cousin, if you're reading this, please try to see it from my perspective and realize that this isn't a diatribe against you, but rather against the way I feel about the circumstances.)  But I remain supremely pissed about the name.  Maybe this will help.