Heffernan Family Events - Vol. 2

The Heffernan Family is defined by its history together and apart. Well-known to us, but maybe not to everyone are the family members and all those other people, places, and events that serve to make up our own unique family identity. This post if an effort to detail the people and events that make us the Royal Heffernans.

Mom's Sunday Tirades

Sunday’s were a time of relative ease at the Royal Heffernan home. An early mass time, usually 7:30 or 8AM was the norm. It wasn’t unpleasant, and afterwards there would be breakfast at a nice restaurant or someone would cook the eggs, biscuits, and sausage patties at home. Then, depending on the time of year, it would be a leisurely morning of Dutch First division soccer, and a quick nap.
Well, those were the very rare Sundays. Usually, once mass was over (literally), mom would begin planning the chores and tasks. The car ride home from mass would be defined by the jobs laid out by mom for all of us to do. It wasn’t as if mom was really congenial about this; things were done her way, or the screaming began. Dusting, laundry, stripping beds, cleaning bathrooms, putting away clothes, and on and on. By 9:30AM, you would have thought you stepped into the workhouse of Oliver Twist. I really don’t recall a Sunday before I was 15 years old where mom wasn’t pissed off at one of us for something.
A lot of time it was Bridget and Colin who inspired the most violent responses from mom. Usually not Ted or Ian, as Ian always did his chores well, and Ted, well, we all learned not to yell at Ted. And even though Bridget and Colin inspired the ire of mom, they were so damn good at disappearing that it usually fell on Ian and I. To this day Ian and I are the “best cleaners” of mom’s children. I don’t know if that’s a good title or not, but man can I clean a bathroom!
Mom’s tirades were fact for nearly 15 years, but have since moved more into the realm of legend and memory. It’s tough to image mom, sweet Mrs. Heffernan, the leading lady of the Royal Heffernans as anything but a kind, loving, compassionate woman. Six days of the week you’d be right. But there was always Sunday. And mom just wasn’t the same on Sunday.