Wreckage is on my mind lately. You know how the hymn goes: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound That saved a wreck like me.”

Chemo left me a train wreck, which reminds me of a sick joke that I’d tell as a kid. I’d laugh so hard I couldn’t get out the punch line. I found it all the funnier because the joke required that I use a lisp and speak in a little girl’s voice.

So for old time’s sake. You’ll appreciate the abbreviated version.

Sally and I were walking home from school one day, but Sally didn’t do as her mother always said when we got to the train tracks. She didn’t look to her right; she didn’t look to her left. And she walked slowly across the train tracks.

And the train came—Choo choo. And ran right over her.

And her arm was over there; her leg was over there. She was everywhere. But I found her ear, and I picked it up and yelled into it: “Sally, put yourself back together again.”

Lousy joke and kid accent aside, we can all relate to a time when we’ve had to put ourselves back together again, even if it was piece by bloody piece.

I told this joke about the same time we got to visit Mount St. Helens three months after it had erupted. We were allowed nowhere near the mountain, we couldn’t even see it, but we got close enough to understand what wreckage is all about.

Even from that distant vantage point, we could see trees lined up like matchsticks, the roof of a house stuck in ash, the lava rivers, and total devastation as far as the eye could see.

Amid lava, pumice, and ash, the depths of hell, green blades had already sprung into being—the saving grace.

A train wreck, a natural disaster, and now, a wretch like me, or whatever’s leftover from the aftermath of chemo–round one.

Not to forget the new life force shooting out of that barren wasteland inside of me–the following day, my youngest became a teenager.

The birth of Alexandra Grace. My saving grace. My bright spot even when I feel like a personal train wreck pulling myself back together again.

She didn’t have a name at first. Just Baby Girl Ortiz and for three days after that. I couldn’t decide.

And Alex played a mean trick on me. He told me he liked the name Alexandra Grace, and he left me alone to decide in that hospital room. We couldn’t go until I’d signed those discharge papers.

We thought we had a great story for how we named Skylar. Only to find out later, she feels that we cheated her of the I-could-have-been-named game that her sister gets to play with her friends.

Truth, I thought it was a bit corny to name Alexandra after her father. I mean, really! But it sounded so sweet paired with my Grandmother’s name, Grace.

And the runner ups were, well, you judge. First, there was Kendall. But Skylar kept saying candle instead. That did the name in for Alex. However, Alexandra is as steady as a flame. She’s the one we always said, when we get old and need someone to take care of us, it’d be her.

So we asked Skylar what she wanted to name her sister, and she said Flower.

Like that was going to happen. So I did what any desperate mom would do, right before I gave birth. I went on a Mommy-To-Be message board and put it out there for the universe to answer: what name goes with Skylar?

That led to one possible name choice I could glean from them before heading to the hospital. Sage.

But Sage Grace didn’t sound good together.

Who knew Sage would have been very fitting. Alexandra has always been wise. She always prided herself on being just like her sister. So she did things you didn’t think little kids were capable of doing.

I’d drive Skylar to school and quiz her on her spelling. She’d get out of the car, and Alexandra would pipe in from the backseat, “Now test me.”

So I’d give her simple spelling words for her to spell back.

She always had a memory like none other. I remember in 3rd Grade, she said. “I only ever got one word wrong on a spelling test, and that was in Kindergarten.”

Amused, I played along. “Oh yeah, what was the word?”

“Eagle. I spelled it e-a-g-u-l. It was extra credit, and no one else got it right, but I never spelled that word wrong again..”

I said, “It’s not like you ever had to use that word anyway.”

But the conversation had moved on.

Or the time she came home from camp and announced there were 23 other campers. My Dad joked that time. “Oh yeah? I bet you can’t name them all.”

Of course, she named every one of them.

That memory recall carried her into the piano. She could hear a song and play it back by memory. But it wasn’t enough to take one piano lesson a week; she asked for another. Soon she was playing mini-concerts wherever she happened upon a piano. She just had to play.

But I’m procrastinating again, just thinking about how I couldn’t name her. But finally, it just made the most sense. Alexandra Grace.

Indeed, she turned out to have the personality of her father. He was always joking, and even from an early age, she’d make us laugh, too, even when she was too young to understand the concept of humor.

She’d change her name every year. She went a whole year calling herself Alexa. Then she’d change her name again. The teachers were confused, and I’d say, “She’ll tell you what she wants to go by. At home, she’s always Alexandra.”

Or that Willow Smith song would come on, and she’d say, “This is my favorite song.” And I’d look in the rearview mirror, and she’d be singing the lyrics, “I whip my hair back and forth.” And yes, she was true to form and tossed her head from side to side.

Funny right? But she didn’t understand why we were laughing. She’d cry because she thought we were laughing at her.

So we’d have to explain the abstract as best we could.

“We’re not laughing at you. We’re laughing with you.”

“But I’m not laughing.”

So we’d try a different tactic. “What you do and say is funny.”

“I don’t think it’s funny.”

“What you have is a gift. It’s a gift to be able to make people laugh and not realize how funny you are. One day you’ll understand. Right now, know we’re not laughing at you.”

The other day, Alexandra came home from school with this story about how she was waiting in car line with another 7th Grader and two 5th Graders.

Her friend asked the brother and sister what Grade they were in and then announced she was in 7th Grade.

The 5th Grader said, “Do you think I care?”

Her friend ignored him, “Some people think I’m in High School or even in college. This one lady said, ‘How’s college going this year?'”

The 5th Grade boy said, “Yeah, she probably thought you were in college because of your height, but not because of your smartness.”

So Alexandra turned to the twin sister and said, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how annoying is he?”

She never answered. Instead, the brother said, “I have a water bottle, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

She may be smarter than a 5th Grader and can hold her own when it comes to wit, she’s one heck of a musician, but she just so happens to be the one person you always call when you need the photo, the craft project, ahem, my joy board.

She had a test the next day, but I had to get my joy board done because I had chemo. So I turned to her and said, “You’ve got to help me. I’m running out of time, and I’ve got to get this done.”

So there she was helping me put together my joy board instead of studying and didn’t say a word. Alex finally clued me in about the test.

When Alex walked out of the room and left me alone to fill out the paperwork thirteen years ago, he made his point. I was overthinking it. Her name had been there all along. Name? Alexandra Grace.

So I could finally see. I branded my baby for life and named her after her father. (Not such a curse, after all) With a middle name, Grace, that has been forever sweet the sound. And she just so happened to save a wretch like me.