It was at Mass yesterday that it happened. We weren't as rushed as usual because only 2/5 of us were attending mass. My middle child had been vomiting the night before and therefore couldn't attend. And if one adult was staying home with a sick kid, then surely the 18 month old was staying home too. Do you remember what it's like to be with an impatient, independent toddler at Mass? Especially the Palm Sunday Mass where you know you are going to read the long (extra long), interactive Gospel that leaves you feeling guilty because you were asking Pontius Pilate to kill Jesus? Well, anyway, when you have the opportunity to attend that mass without the toddler, you take it. But I digress...
There's a feeling I get sometimes. It's the "ahhh home" feeling. Except it was much more powerful than normal. It was a wave of nostalgia so strong I time-traveled back to when I was a little girl, sitting at Mass with my mom. I could smell the incense, see the blue carpet with indents from the kneeler, and feel the scratchy tweed seat. I loved the glittery ceiling. When I go there now, I am sad because what's left of the glittery ceiling is peeling off. Man, I loved that ceiling.
I would snuggle in close and hold her hand and while Father Tony or Father Frank (whichever one it was at the time) was delivering a homily that she listened to so intently, I was studying her hands. Every. Single. Detail. I would run my fingers over her hands and feel the dry skin. I wondered at the veins that popped up ever so slightly so that I could push them around with my own small fingers. Her nails, her rings, her knuckles, I studied it all as hard as Father Tony (or Father Frank) was hoping we were listening to the homily.
But this time the nostalgia was interrupted. As it is when you are in the middle of a dream, and then you realize that you are dreaming, and you are disappointed but also happy that you haven't yet left the imagined world of your slumber. Not bad feeling, just slightly disappointed. And it was because I realized that my mom's hands that I was admiring were not her hands, but were, in fact, my hands. The wrinkles, the dry skin, the veins you could move. It was so weird. I really can't think of another word for it.
