I'll have Nun of that . . .

My parents had high hopes for me.


In most Catholic families one kid is singled out to become the one in the family who becomes a Priest or Nun. Catholics usually have a lot of kids. They can afford to sacrifice one and offer them up to God. They pinned their hopes on me. They wanted me to join the convent and become a cloistered Nun, but the Nun's kept telling them they didn't want me. Under any circumstances. Even if they ran out of Nun's.


My parents wouldn't listen. I had a Mary in my name and that meant I was the human sacrifice in our family. Most Catholic families have at least one child named Mary in the bunch. I used to argue with my parents that it didn't make any sense when Nun's ended up with boy names like, Herbert, Martin, and John.


I used to point my finger at my oldest sister. She thought she had a calling when she was 10. She thought she saw Virgin Mary on the baseball field, behind home plate. I'm pretty sure it was the glare off the bald umpire's head that created the angelic glow. Never-the-less, she came home, grabbed a box of tin foil and some string from the kitchen and started making rosaries in her room. Then she tried to sell them to us. I didn't think that was very charitable. Or very Nun-like.

The same sister recruited me to be an altar boy in her room where she religiously conducted Sunday Mass on Saturday's behind closed doors. We used Necco wafers for the hosts, a clothes hamper turned upside down as the altar, and prune juice instead of wine. My other sister was a parishioner and I was the altar boy who rang the bell and sat by the bedroom door keeping watch in case our mom came down the hall and found us being sacrilegious. I wasn't too thrilled with this set-up. It meant that I had to attend Mass twice on weekends. I quit the Church of My Holy Sister and became a heathen in my own home when she decided to hold daily confessions in her closet. I had too much to lose and couldn't risk her finding out that I read her diary on a daily basis. My parents had other plans for her anyway. She was going to be a doctor. Or so they thought.


My other sister never had a calling. She was too busy doing nothing. I think she slept through most of her childhood and my parents forgot she existed. They never bothered her.


They focused their attention on me. I was their hope. I was their dream. I was not having any of it. I tried for a while to please them. I asked them to take me to Lourdes. I figured if I was supposed to be a Nun then Lourdes was the place to go. They refused. They took me to church instead and pointed at the statue of Mary. I stared at Mary for a long time. I stared so long I swear she moved her hands. It freaked me out. I told my parents that Mary spoke to me. I told them she said go home and do something else. Don't be a Nun. I told them she wanted me to go to Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and San Francisco to Fisherman's Wharf to eat sourdough bread. I told them she wanted me to have a bike of my own, skates and a big wheel. I told them that she said I was put on earth to be their favorite and to deny me nothing. They gave up and concentrated on my brother. I thought he stood a much better chance. He already had a boy name.

the end. . .