Names

What’s in a name?

There is a great deal in any name the way the syllables sound, where some one puts the accent, or how you respect it and share it with others.

Today my son Raymond called and he said Hi Mom how ya doin.  I smiled theirs no one that can say Mom just the way he does.  When Willie calls, my oldest son, he says Hi Mom.  How are you?  It’s almost the same words with the same meaning to me.  The influxes and the tone speak more to me then the words.

This conversation set me off on a pattern of listening to how many different ways others say the name given to me at birth.  The name my mother gave me at Birth was Marylois.  This is how I call myself.  Some people call me Mary.  Others Mary-Louise, and still other avoid saying my name so they don’t get it wrong. For a long time I just let it go what ever others called me I came. My life continued.

Then one day I heard Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha’ talking about names and how they are codes.  Much like how I write Pa’Ris’Ha’ now.  When I first started writing her name I simple wrote Grandmother Parisha.  Then as I grew to have a better understanding of the respect I carry for Grandmother Pa’Ris’Ha’ It became important for me to honor her by saying and writing her name as the code that it is.

I change the way I was being with the name that my mother gave me.  I stared helping others to understand the importance that my name carries for me.  When it is not spoke correctly I assist them in hear my name as my mother intended it.  Still others kept writing it as Mary Lois.  I keep plotting along trying to get everyone to say and write it right.

Then three years ago I got by pass port. I had to send for a copy of my birth certificate from the county I was born in.  Well guess what for 50 years the way my mother had me spell my name was Marylois how ever on my birth certificate it is spelled Mary Lois.  Surprise!!!

I giggled when contemplating these thoughts.  Then I remember that my mother named me Marylois because her mothers name was Mary and my fathers mother’s name was Lois.   I was to carry there names in this life time.  It is the collimation of both of my grandmothers and through the gift of my mom and dad that I have held this name.

I began to study the people behind the name what their linage was and the gifts they gave me in this life time.  How can I honor them?  Carry their name with respect was all I could do.

 It’s all a story.  That’s less then a grain of sand in the ocean.  The power that this grain has is to me and the knowing of who I am.  I know who I am and that’s just meJ 

“We are one together”

Marylois