What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
My middle name is Loia, and for most of my life, it was a mystery.
It’s funny this WordPress prompt comes up today… because I’ve spent decades carrying that name without really knowing why.
I always knew it was rare. I knew it sounded different. But beyond that, it was just this odd, beautiful word that sat between my first and last name like a secret I didn’t yet understand.
What I did know was that it was also my step great-grandfather’s middle name.
He wasn’t related to me by blood at all. He was my great-grandmother’s second husband, and they never had any children together.
On paper, he and I weren’t really connected at all. But life doesn’t always follow paper.
He was always around as I was growing up. He loved me and helped raise me like I was his own. He was an extraordinary man, steady and present, and he stayed in my life until he passed away in the mid-90s.
That middle name tied us together, even if I didn’t know where it came from. I just knew I shared something with him, and that felt important—even if I couldn’t put it into words.
When I started my blog back in November, I chose Loia as my pen name. I wasn’t even sure why I did it at the time.
It just felt right… like the name was waiting for that moment.
Maybe it reminded me of him. Or maybe the name had just been sitting there all along.
Either way… I typed it into the author field. And it just felt right.
Recently, I started digging into it… really digging.
I wanted to know what I’d been carrying all these years.
I found out that Loia was my step great-grandfather’s mother’s maiden name.
She was an Italian immigrant, and she gave that name to her son as his middle name… so he would carry it with him—to keep her lineage from being forgotten.
That’s when it really hit me.
She didn’t want her name, her people, her story to disappear into the dust of time.
So she planted it in her child’s name like a seed.
And now, somehow, I carry it too.
I’m not Italian at all, at least not by blood. Yet here I am, bearing the same name she fought to preserve.
Somehow.. I became part of what she started… long before I was even born.
And somehow I’m the one who ended up running with it.
I traced Loia back to its Latin origin and into the early Roman Empire.
I followed it as far back as the 12th century, to the Loia family in the southern Italian peninsula, in places like Campania. There may even be some Sicilian roots branching off that same line.
I read stories about relatives from those eras, names.. dates.. fragments of lives, and it was fascinating.
It felt like finding my name written in a story that started centuries before me… even though none of them are my blood.
Apparently it’s a rare surname.
Old as dirt…
the kind of name that has seen things.
I could have kept tracing it back even further, but at some point.. I decided to stop.
I knew enough.
I had already learned more than I ever expected to… and the mystery started feeling like it belonged to me.
Growing up, I pronounced it “Loy” like “Joy,” because that’s how I was told by my mother to say it.
Only recently did I learn that the Italian way is more like “LOH-yah.”
It’s interesting hearing the same name two different ways—one from my childhood, the other from Italy.
And then there’s this other detail that feels too poetic to ignore…
My girlfriend is also an Italian/Sicilian immigrant and an American citizen.
The way we met, the timing, the circumstances around it—it all carries this almost storybook quality.
“Coincidence” doesn’t quite feel like the right word anymore.
I don’t know how to explain it fully.
It just feels like there’s a hand at work in my life right now… quietly lining things up.
This old, rare name. The man who loved me like his own. The Italian mother who didn’t want her lineage forgotten. My choice of pen name. My girlfriend’s story.
All these crooked lines seem to be converging in ways I couldn’t have planned if I tried.
So what is my middle name, and what is its meaning or significance?
My middle name is Loia.
It’s the name of a man who helped raise me, the name of an Italian woman who refused to let her family disappear, a name that has survived centuries, continents, and bloodlines to land here, in my life, on my byline.
It reminds me that family isn’t always about blood… and that sometimes the things we carry our whole lives… finally make sense.
“It’s not what you got… it’s what you give. It aint the life you choose… it’s the life you live.”
It was the summer of 1995… I was 21… going through much… trying to figure life out…
I’d just moved in with a guy I worked with… only been there a few weeks… it was the weekend… I’d been out late hanging with my friends…
when I finally came home… I headed down the hall toward my bedroom…
As I got closer… I could hear a guitar playing… a girl singing… the sound was coming from my room…
I was like wth!?…
I opened my door…
There on my bed… a black-haired girl I had never seen before… strumming my guitar… singing… completely lost in it… like she owned the night… no curfew in sight…
she wasn’t wearing any clothes… my brain just blue-screened…
I was frozen… my tongue super stuck…
she looks at me… with friendly eyes… smiles and says Hey
“your roommate said it was ok…”
Her name was Rachel… she and I became friends… we often jammed together…
she was a part-time exotic dancer… aka… a stripper…
my roommate was dating her friend… so many nights… she and her friends… plural… ended up at my house…
but she never wanted to hang out with the rest of them… she just wanted to chill… sing songs… play guitar…
She was a great musician… had a great voice… music was her dream…
Many times I’d come home late find her in my room… doing her thing…
I’d grab my other guitar… and we’d play for hours…
I had a small recording studio we’d lay down tracks… we recorded all kinds of covers… had these freestyle… ad-lib jam sessions… just chasing whatever sound showed up…
It was definitely a crazy summer… but also kind of holy in its own way…
it’s beautiful how musicians can come together and bond… doesn’t matter who or what you are… your background or anything…
musicians and artists just immediately have that thing. that links us… that invisible wire… heart to heart… song to song…
what I remember most those nights… isn’t the chaos…
it’s the music…
two guitars… chasing songs in the middle of the night… letting the sound carry through a messy season of life…
…
I did much praying that summer…
cryin’ out in the night…
sometimes with words… sometimes with songs…
finding healing…
wherever I could…
..
Oh yeah I might be crazy… But that’s not the same as insane… And I’m scared… But that’s not the same as being afraid…
I’ve got two lottery stories. Here’s the first—one that’s stuck with me for years.
Back when I used to work delivering top-grade fruits and vegetables to restaurants all over Atlanta, one of the guys I worked with told me this story about his aunt and uncle up in Michigan. They were the kind of folks who played the lottery religiously—same numbers every week, knew them by heart. His uncle worked construction, his aunt stayed home.
One day, the uncle was on the job, radio on in the background, when the lottery numbers came up. One by one, he heard them read off… and they were his numbers. Every single one. He stood there frozen, trying to grasp it—he was a millionaire, just like that. He felt like Jed Clampett, like George Jefferson—about to “move on up,” as they say. He couldn’t believe it—after all that time, the numbers finally hit.
Trembling, he grabbed his phone and called home. His wife answered. He could barely get the words out—“Honey, we won. We won!” You can imagine that rush of joy, disbelief, tears, laughter—the whole spectrum of emotions hitting at once.
When they finally calmed down, he asked her, “Where’s the ticket?”
Silence.
She didn’t know. Couldn’t remember. They searched every corner of that house—you name it: drawers, kitchen counters, coat pockets, even the trash—but the ticket was gone.
Never turned up.
It was a multimillion jackpot—ten million or more, my coworker said. They never recovered from it. They ended up divorcing. He drank himself into an early grave; she lost her mind and eventually wound up in a mental hospital.
I’ll never forget that story. They were just one missing ticket away from a whole new life. Makes you realize how thin the line is between winning big and losing everything…
…
…
The second story’s a little different—it’s about the strange brush I had with the lottery once.
I don’t normally play. Honestly, it had probably been ten years since the last time I bought a ticket. But one day, these numbers just popped into my head out of nowhere. They felt… random, but not really. So I scribbled them down and thought, why not? Maybe I’m supposed to play these.
That evening, I bought a ticket for the Fantasy Five drawing. Later that night, I sat down in front of the TV, ticket in hand, heart doing that nervous little dance while I waited for the numbers to roll out.
The first one—bam. I had it. The second—got it. The third—hit again. The fourth—yes! Four in a row.
Now it all came down to the last number. If it hit, I’d be holding a ticket worth half a million dollars. I was right there on the edge of my seat, waiting… the winning number flashed on the screen—29.
I looked down. Mine said 30.
Missed it by one digit. Just one.
Still, four out of five wasn’t bad—I got a hundred bucks out of it. Not life-changing, but it sure made for a good story.
Funny how luck works, isn’t it? One number can mean the difference between a payday and just another story before bed…
So I guess if there’s any moral here, it’s this—don’t store your hopes and dreams in things that can be lost… store them where they’re eternal — that’s where the true jackpot is waiting…
Matthew 13:44 (NIV) “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field…”
Back in 2o08… my life was fun fun… you know… dodging bullets… concrete shoes… watery graves… Judas kisses… the usual crap Eventually… I took a break from all the excitement And checked myself into an 18 month drug rehab in Florida They say rehab is for quitters… yep… they’d be right…
A few weeks in… something real started happening inside me Things slowed down Life was simple Clear Peaceful For the first time in a long time… I was happy My mind was sharp God was working in me something fierce Speaking loud Speaking clear I knew… I was exactly where I needed to be…
We were on this beautiful ten acre spread And I lived in a house with about ten other guys All of them tired All of them broken All of them ready for change They became my brothers And— they still are…
One of my responsibilities there… was to care for the ministry dog His name was Beavis Cool name— cooler dog He was older… a boxer mix… gorgeous… and so smart He didn’t really have anywhere to go either His owner Stuart had died of cancer about a year before I arrived… and Beavis never recovered from it…
He was grieving Deeply They told me how he cried… and searched… and waited for Stuart… And it broke my heart A dog that was once full of life… joy… energy… spark… Was now quiet… distant… hurting… He would not let anyone in…
But there was one thing he still loved… There was this random green 10 pound bowling ball on the property You could sling that thing across the grounds And Beavis would bark… chase it down… and roll it across the field with his head… Like it was the most important mission on earth I had never seen a dog play with a bowling ball before 😁 He absolutely loved it So I made it my daily mission… to roll life back into him…
People told me Beavis would never bond with anyone again That he belonged to Stuart That his heart was finished choosing humans…
Challenge accepted—
I took care of him Vet visits Meds Food Time Love Patience And after about a year… it happened… Beavis chose me— He followed me everywhere He slept beside my bed He watched me Protected me Laughed with me… in his dog way… He came back to life…
But loving… comes with cost—
Because he slept outside before I came… He had gotten heartworms from mosquitoes Over the four years I lived there… after graduating… and becoming resident director… Beavis slowly grew sicker… I gave him antibiotics daily I loved him harder as he grew weaker And.. Just like he stayed with Stuart— I stayed with him… til the end…
He had a soft bed right beside mine He had warmth Comfort Care Family Honor… He was treated like royalty—
All us guys loved him so…
And when the time came… I could not watch him suffer anymore… I made the call… Was so hard for me… So hard…
Beavis was one of the greats Not just a dog… A gift—
He was meant for me I was meant for him
destined for each other…
I will always remember him…
The mighty— loyal— stubborn— beautiful heart of Beavis…
He was my Dawg… 😎`’.,°~
…
Though oceans roar… You are the Lord of all… The one who calms the wind and waves and makes my heart be still… Though the Earth gives way… the mountains move into the sea… The nations rage… I know my God is in control…
Heart of Loia `'.,°~ 