“Let’s go, everyone. They are closing in 30 minutes. Hurry up or we won’t make it in time.” My fifteen-year old self groans at my father’s voice. I pick at my comforter on my bed with my pencil and draw a little flower next to the quilted one.
“Alright, Dad. I am coming. What about Mom? Is she ready?” I yell back at my father even though a few feet separate my room and the living area.
“She’s ready. She is putting her shoes on. Your sister is standing next to the door.” My father’s voice carries and vibrates through the walls.
I slide into my jeans, slip my shirt over my head, and grab a sweater. It is November and in Texas that means it can get cold.
Despite the weather, it is Sunday. And that means we are all going to head to Braum’s Ice Cream. Sunday nights in our house always meant ice cream.
We all piled into the Topaz Toyota Tercel (a car that is considered beyond vintage these days). My father cranked up the radio. The sounds of Indian singers filled the car while we drove down our very American street. We passed my elementary school and the adjoining park, where a few brave soccer players kicked the ball around.
“What flavor do you want, Rudri?” My father always asked this question even though our orders rarely changed.
“You know, Dad, peppermint ice cream with a waffle cone.” I yelled so that he could hear me over the blaring Indian music.
We approach the drive-thru window. That was always our preference. The teenager recites her well-rehearsed speech, “Welcome to Braums, I am ready to take your order.”
“Yes. We want peppermint ice cream in a waffle cone. Pause. Butterscotch ice cream in a cup. Orange sherbet in a cone. And one last thing, chocolate ice cream in a cup. That’s all. Thank you.” My father also had rehearsed his order. It was the same order, every Sunday night, for so many years.
We would collect our respective ice creams and my father would park in one of the empty spaces. We licked our ice creams, listened to music, and talked about nothing at all. We were just an ordinary family eating ice cream in our car.
For many years, I never really understood the importance of this tradition. That’s the interesting thing about memories. As they are happening, we don’t understand how they ripple into the present. Lately, I’ve thought about those peppermint ice cream days and how the four of us did not have any imminent worries as we held our cones and cups, except for preventing the ice cream dripping onto the seat.
Those ice cream moments remind me of the good and simple times. When I am sometimes skirting the edge of my grief, I think about all the times that we enjoyed as a family. Lately, I long to replace those hard and agonizing days toward the end of my father’s life with a memory of how much goodness we shared.
The laughter. The tradition. The comfort. I remember, Dad. Peppermint ice cream makes me remember.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
What a lovely memory! I love peppermint ice cream.
Awesome post….the importance of valuing family traditions that we often take for granted. We had a similar tradition too, in Nairobi! We would go out for lunch every Sunday, and after lunch we would always go to Sno Cream for ice cream! My order was always vanilla with chocolate sprinkles in a cone!
It’s great how the ice cream brings back the memories. Peppermint ice cream reminds me of my grandmother and how our extended family used to drive to Indiana from Kalamazoo, Michigan, to eat dinner at a particular Chinese restaurant. We always ordered ice cream for dessert, and my grandmother and I were the ones to order peppermint. She always winked at me when we ordered.
This is really lovely, Rudri. I love the details you chose to bring your readers right back into the moment with you.
I think all the time about memory and often wonder what moments will be elevated to the level of memory by me and by my kids. I am also a great fan of secular rituals and their potential to transform the everyday into something extraordinaru – not to mention a great fan of ice cream!
Memories remembered and savored. xo
These moments that add up to rituals and traditions are wondrous memories. I hope my sons will look back and find some, though like you – I recall ice cream rituals at certain times of year (Dairy Queen), and I don’t know that my kids have those. I wonder what they will remember… Something delectable, I hope.
Lovely.
This is lovely, Rudri. As soon as I got to the part where you wrote that this is what your family had been doing every Sunday night – same order, same place, same way – I thought, how wonderful and how absolutely special. That, too, encourages me to look back on my life to see if I have a memory/tradition like that, and to start one for our family as well.