Newlywed

This afternoon we had a little trip down memory lane, a flashback to when we were first married.

For the first 9 months of our marriage, we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment 20 minutes west of where we live now. It was an area of Queens that was way more congested – more traffic, more people, close to zero parking spaces. It did have the advantage of being walking distance to the subway, though, and a much shorter commute for Frank & myself. (We both worked in the city back in those days.)

For that short time, our parish was St. Mary’s. It was about 5 or so blocks away from the apartment. We’d usually walk since driving meant spending an additional hour once we got back from Mass circling for a parking space. We liked it there and were happy with our little apartment and our Church until we realized, fairly early on, that we’d be needing a second bedroom.

We moved into our current home a month before Stephen was born and haven’t been back at St. Mary’s since. Until today.

One of the seminarians had his candidacy today at that Church. (Steve had his last year. You were all forced to read every detail about it here and here and all the surrounding days.) We’ve known this seminarian, Chris, since high school and he will be heading to Rome next month.

Y’all know how much I love seeing my boys so of course we had to attend the Mass. I don’t know why I feel like a proud mother when I see all the seminarians (& some of the younger priests) processing in but I just do. I can’t help myself, even if I barely know some of them. But this post isn’t about my boys. It’s about me because this is my blog.

We walked into the Church for the first time in 24 years. I turned to Frank & Theresa. “The last time I was here, I was pregnant with Stephen!” I looked around at the Church. The outside, the surrounding neighborhood – they all looked familiar but the Church itself didn’t. I do remember it being a very beautiful Church but the details were all forgotten. I suppose having only been a parishioner for 9 months and then not setting foot there for so long had it’s toll on my brain & my memory.

After Mass, we stepped outside. Excitedly I pointed across the street at the cake outlet factory. “We used to stop in there every Sunday after Mass!” I rambled on about the cake, about Guido (our landlord’s name -which, by the way, I had to stifle a laugh when he was first introduced, all sorts of things from our past. Theresa was bored but pretended to pay attention.

I have decided that my next trip should be to Brooklyn, to the place I grew up. I’m pretty sure after 30 years, there probably won’t be much that’ll be familiar but I now have this urge to drag Theresa around and show her my roots. And I don’t mean the ones on my head.