Groceries

I used to like going to the grocery store….okay…..that may be a stretch. I use to dislike going to the grocery store a whole lot less than I dislike it now. But it is not the grocery store’s fault. It is really nobody’s fault.

It has become a ritual that mother looks forward to all week. We have our little grocery purchasing plan. She buys her special foods and I buy main meal items. She has her shopping list ready. I don’t know why she makes one because she buys the same thing each week...individual serving containers of applesauce, peaches, tapioca, jello, and a loaf of rye bread. But she is a list person. There are no less than 15 little lists – all over the house. They are the backs of envelopes, old church bulletins, the margin of magazine pages – all the while she has an entire drawer dedicated to cute little notepads she has received as gifts.

Someday, I am sure I will write about her lists, like the time she gave me a list to shop for her - but oops – that was last month’s and now we have two of everything on that list and none of the necessary items from this month’s list.

So back to the grocery store. Mother is inordinately slow. She hates it. She hated it in her mom, so I try to minimize it. We start out in the dairy aisle, the wisdom of which I question considering the time it takes us to shop. She won’t let me push her in a wheelchair because “she doesn’t want to be a bother.” So she slowly makes her way through the aisles and stops, looking through coupons, then reaches for the butter – somehow managing to take up the entire aisle between her cane and her reach.

Others politely wait, tapping their feet, aghhumming, and wryly smiling as she turns with a startle and says , “Oh! Pardon me!”

She then moves away from the cooler to let others by. Of course, she hasn’t picked up the butter yet so she starts the task over. I grab it quickly and say, “No worries, I’ve got it.”

My usual 35 minute grocery store trip becomes an hour and a half and I struggle to be civil near the end. I apologize to those around me and once in a while I receive those knowing sympathetic glances…… which I would appreciate if they did not come with, “Enjoy her while you can. I miss my mine.”

My mind shouts, “I am NOT enjoying this moment. Thankyouverymuch!”

But my heart quickens and I fill with shame that I am so annoyed. And I suddenly remember hanging onto the grocery cart loudly begging for Cocoa Puffs while a tall beautiful, slender woman quickly catches the falling package of baby cereal my toddler brother tossed toward the floor. I remember the breeze of her housedress sweeping past my face and the gentle giggle of her voice as she says to the grocer who was stacking shelves and was nearly decked with the cereal box, “Pardon me!”

So I will cope and be patient. I will!! I will be like Olive Oyl, with arms flying and stretching toward both sides of the grocery aisle, grabbing items wildly – my mother unaware – so that this deplorable task can end a few minutes sooner and she – none the wiser.

Lord, I now know why patience is called a virtue! ~K