My middle name is an adjective.

 

 

My mother named me Mary Immaculate. Quite the handle for a five-pound baby girl, but I was raised Italian Catholic so there you have it. Mom already had four sons by the time I came along. When Mom found out she was carrying her fifth child, she prayed to the Virgin Mary for a girl and she promised to name her first daughter in honor of the Holy Mother. When I popped out, Mom was elated. I can’t say what the Virgin Mary thought about it all. Funny thing is, in Mom's haste to repay her debt to the Blessed Virgin, she plopped an adjective between my first name and my last, not a proper noun, like Teresa or Margaret. Perhaps that’s what inspired me to become a writer. Still, anyone who knows me well can tell you that such an unusual middle name failed to make me spotlessly perfect in any way.