Returning Home With Sunday Rituals
Growing up, I dreaded Sundays — chore day. Lately, I’m starting to pick up what my mom was teaching me.
My mom has always been an organized person. It’s practically her religion. When she made grocery lists, she would write them in order of where the food was in the store. She’d zip up and down aisle after aisle, picking up things in an orderly fashion, putting them in the cart. Her coupons were always ready and she knew exactly what her savings would be. She made sure each meal during the week had variety. We never had the same food too often or too little. There was some kind of running calendar in her mind of what we’d eaten and when. She remembered those things.
There was always a point every Saturday morning where my mom would ask me and my brother if we had any special requests for specific meals or foods during the week. She shopped on Saturday afternoons in order to prepare for Sunday. I was baptized young, and I didn’t really understand what going to Church meant to my mom, but I went through my First Communion, was Confirmed, and kept going to Church. It was part of our family’s ritual. I cried at the ceremony because I was out of my element. Routines can be jarring when they’re thrust upon you. I kept getting older, and we kept going to Saturday mass, every week at 4 p.m. I got…
