Stories about my parents

I am just finishing up a visit with my parents, and returning to my childhood home has brought back some memories from the past. As a special treat, would like to share the two stories that I feel best explain who my parents are as people.

My father: I grew up Catholic, and every week I had to go to a catechism class, which I barely tolerated. When I was in second or third grade, we preparing for our first communion, which is a Big Deal for Catholics. It’s the point when we are ritualistically introduced to cannibalism, but it’s okay because the guy we’re eating died for us. Catechism was usually run by a nun, but on this special day, we had a priest in to explain the importance of the sacrament. He asked us what communion was, to which I said it was a metaphor for the body and blood of Christ. Anybody who knows Catholic theology realizes that I’ve committed heresy at this point. The priest told me I was wrong and asked the question again. I spent five minutes trying to find every way to restate the word metaphor because it was clear to me that was what it was. Exasperated, the priest finally asked if anyone else had an answer, but the general consensus in the room was that I had the right of it. Finally, the priest had enough of it and emphatically pronounced that communion IS the body and blood of Christ. Unfortunately for him, most people seemed fairly convinced by my arguments, meaning that I had started an eight year old Protestant Reformation.

When I got home, I was livid from being yelled at by the priest. I kicked open the door, threw down my bookbag and stormed into the living room. My father, who had been reading the paper, folded it down and asked me what was wrong. I explained the whole situation, and at the end, he sighed and stated, “Yeah, we’re probably Lutheran.” With that, he flipped the paper back up and continued reading. It was only years later that I discovered that my father was an atheist who forced me to go to church because my parents agreed that it would be good for me to be introduced to religion and because my father was afraid of his Irish Catholic mother.

My mother: my mother once said to me, “Oh, so Spiderman was based on a real story.” She would want me to add that A.) I had mentioned someone named Parker an hour earlier, and B.) she hadn’t been paying attention. I’m not sure the full story really makes her look any better.