Mine is My
Mother’s Sacred
Name

Debbra Palmer

—For my mother, Deborah

In a hotel room in Provo, my mother claims
I am named after her. But her name is Cheryle,
with an e, and that is not my name.

She means her sacred name, the one
given to her by a temple worker
when she married my father
in Idaho Falls in 1968. All this while,
she’s had this name and only now
she tells me we both are Deborah, 
from the Book of Judges, foreteller and seer.

My father remembers a lot of things: 
the words to Mairzy Doats, the name 
of a pretty girl he met once at a parade in Saskatoon. 
He remembers how many licks 
my grandfather gave him
when he drove the tractor 
into a ditch. He remembers
the schematics of vending machines
and where to pinch down
on an open artery. 

But, even before I was born 
he forgot things, like whether he loved 
my mother. How many nights 
did she lie awake dreading eternity 
with him, wondering if or when
he might forget to love her again, 
or forget the name to call her 
in the afterlife
to bring her to his side...
She worried he would 
make the old excuse
I forgot, I forgot, and leave her there, 
alone in the eternal dark. 

So that he would not forget, 
my mother gave me her sacred name:
her last ditch, his dog-eared page,  
a sticky note, a string to tie
around his little finger, a catchy tune 
to her beautiful song, a chant
she could hammer into a man’s head.