Sunday Memories

Ten-year-old me.

This little girl didn’t know it then, but the love she felt on Sunday afternoons would stay with her for a lifetime.


 

When I was a little girl, I couldn’t wait to grow up.
Birthdays couldn’t come fast enough. Getting my driver’s license. Turning 21. First boyfriend. Finishing college and starting work. It all felt like a race toward the next milestone.

Now, especially as I recover from surgery and life has slowed down a bit, I find myself traveling back to earlier days.

Lately my mind has been returning to small moments from my childhood when I lived at home with my parents and sister. Rainy days. Halloween costumes. And recently, Sunday afternoons.

Today as the clouds rolled in and I couldn’t get outside, I remembered the Sundays of ten-year-old me.

After church, my mother would stop at the local bakery and pick up a loaf of sliced rye bread, a few hard rolls, and sometimes a crumb cake. When we got home, the “play clothes” came out and our Sunday outfits and shoes were put back in the closet.

We would have a big breakfast that would hold us over until an early dinner later in the day. My parents would read the newspaper while my sister and I played, read, or did homework.

I can’t always remember exactly what we did.

But I remember how it felt.

Love.
Comfort.
Safety.

Not everyone has sweet childhood memories, and I know I was fortunate to grow up in a loving home. Of course it wasn’t perfect. No family ever is.

But as we get older, it’s natural to drift back to those simple days when responsibilities were small and love felt big enough to fill the whole house.

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