Thank You, Jesus

If there are fourteen feet of snow on the ground, a terrorist attack, and pigs flying overhead all in the same weekend, you can bet everything you, your spouse, your children, your parents, and your grandparents have that my mother is still going show up at church. 

Some would call her a devout Catholic, but she certainly doesn’t buy everything the church preaches.  If I had to guess, I’d say she believes about 80% of it.  Still and all, church is so important to her that there is absolutely no way, if everything the church says is true, she is going to end up in Hell.  She can smoke up a room full of newborns with her half pack-a-day habit, tell dad to “fuck off” once in a while, or go into a political tirade about the worthlessness of lawyers or Democrats, but as long as she goes to church every week, you won’t see her ass on fire when the shit comes down.

She, with the help of dad tried with such elegance and grace to involve her kids in her own spiritual journey.  Every week, we all got gussied up, my sister and I in matching outfits on Easter, and sat in that dark, woody, stained-glass shrine where I played with dad’s fingers, forming them into a rabbit or a “fuck you” message for an hour. 

We were quiet and well behaved, for the most part.  Because we knew if one squeak pierced through our lips, there would be mom’s thick, carved, solid wood Kappa sorority paddle waiting to spank us a few hours later.   So we stood and kneeled and sat and kneeled and stood and sat and kneeled and kept quiet except to sing or pray. 

On the way home, we would stop ritualistically at Baskin Robbins for an ice cream cone.  I always ate too slow, so my Rocky Road would slither down the cone onto my hands, face, and chair every, single, time.  “You have two speeds,” mom would always say.  “Slow and stop!”  And I’d hang my head in shame.  Slowly.

As we were leaving, one of the kids would chirp “Thank you, dad!”  Then he or she would smile with chin a little higher and eyes a little bluer, possibly looking up to see the halo shining overhead.

To be clear, saying “thank you” had nothing to do with gratefulness or politeness.  The truth was, if you said thank you first, you won.  There were no prizes.  No lasting effects.  You weren’t regarded more highly by our parents, who never noticed who said it but, undoubtedly, swelled with pride that they had created such polite, generous, and grateful children.  There was no absolution from chores or picking or smacking.   You just won.

And when you didn’t win, there was always a slight jolt of pain.  You’d think to yourself, “I just want to win one time!  Next time, I’ll say it right as dad’s hand reaches for the door.  And I’ll make sure the others are distracted!”  Or, “If only I had tripped her before she said it!”

There were, of course, rules about when you could say it.  You couldn’t say it before you had left the ice cream shop because then it would seem fake.  And if everyone forgot and you waited until that evening over a dinner of burned roast and canned asparagus, it was far too late and you’d just look like a suck up.  The thank you window lasted from the time you left the ice cream shop until a few minutes after you arrived home, but before everyone went their separate ways.

Church and God and Jesus and Mary were so generous to give us a weekly opportunity to have a little sugar and forestall our opponents in the unspoken game of false gratitude.