I was raised Catholic and attended mass until I was 23 regularly. Something changed and I stopped attending, feeling it was not really doing anything for me and I was not getting anything out of it. A choice I know my mother is not thrilled with. We always attended with our parents. My parents, well mostly mom always noted how after communion and before the final prayer many people would slip out to beat the traffic out of the parking lot. I heard many a lecture on this behavior. Even when my siblings and I attended on our own, we never left early even if we wanted to get our Sunday started early, as this is how we were trained. My sister Sue would always grab the church bulletin published weekly with all the church news in it to bring home. She called it “proof of purchase” that we actually attended.
My uncle Ed would come to visit at least once a year from Texas. He was a retired teacher and a Brother in religious order. He would stay in New Jersey for two weeks or so. He had done this as long as I have been alive. He would stay with us and just hang out. It was my father‘s only brother only relative from the Kinsley side of the family. We called him Led for short. My mother always had a low tolerance for Led and his visits. I think because he just came and sat and kind of lived in the past. As kids we loved him. He would be silly with us, take us to New York and generally annoy my mother. Somehow we all kind of liked that.
When my father died and we got older and moved out, the siblings would take Led for the two weeks. We would divide him up for the time he was here so we would all get some quality time. He was up for anything and followed your lead as far as entertaining him.
“Hey Led, how about a cocktail?”
Response #1: “Only if you are having one.”
Response #2: “I wouldn’t say no.”
So one of the first times he stayed with us, I asked him if he wanted to go to church on Sunday and he said yes. Off we went to Saint Greg’s. As my mom lived around the corner from us, it was her church as well. I knew what mass she attended and we arrived just as mass started and Led and myself sat towards the back. I spotted my mother two rows up off the side. As much as she was over Led, she always asked about him and wanted to at least see him for a quick visit when he was here. Except for us kids, it was all he she had left of my father.
I turned to Led and told him my mom was here and told him we will catch her walking out to say a quick hello and make plans to come over for coffee or something. We went up for communion and returned to our seats. I looked over to where my mom was sitting and she had not gone back to her seat after communion. I look in the back of the church and see my mother ducking out the door before the final prayer. I mouth fell open. I could not believe what just happened. She broke her own rule I feared breaking and was taught simply wrong. I can remember just sitting in the pew stunned at what I had just witnessed.
Did she remember she left the iron on? That must be it, because it just can’t be she was in a hurry to be somewhere. I remember discussing with Led whom seemed in classic Led fashion to have no reaction. I think my reaction was purely from the disgust my parents displayed from such behavior.
I spoke to no one about this. The next day I called mother and told her about Led’s visit and was telling how I took him to church on Sunday. Then I told her how we were at the same mass as she was.
Silence
Am I really going to confront my mother about this? Ok I know I should just let it go. But it’s just not in my nature to let something like that slide. A much as I was just giving my mother grief and guilt for my own amusement, I was a little shocked at her breaking of this sacred rule about never leaving early.
“I have to say mom, I was little disappointed in you at mass. I was surprised to see you slip out of church early after what we were told and taught growing up. I was shocked at your behavior. “
Silence
“Well, I was meeting the ladies for breakfast as I always do in Bordentown at ten and I didn’t want to be late.”
Yeah, I know. It was not a nice thing to do and a good person would have let my mother have her dirty little secret and keep my mouth shut. It was too sweet for the picking. I am a bad son. An hour later my phone was ringing off the hook from my siblings. My brother called and told me my mom called him crying.
“Why would you say that to her Tim? Why do you to that to mom?” “That’s your mother Tim!!!”
They could not believe I went after Mom like that. Not a one of them could imagine saying anything like that to her. I had no answer but that I treat my mother like anybody else in my life and if someone lectured my on something and then did the opposite I would call them on it. She is human and justified it as anyone would. Ok, looking at it with some distance I could have used better judgment and cut my mom some slack and not worded the way I did. I stand by my calling her on it in the end, but am sorry she got so upset. At least I didn’t ask to see her “proof of purchase”.
