The Dinner Table
Not too long ago, things were good. Family dinners occurred and breadsticks were broken. Cousins, aunts, and uncles gathered around the kitchen table. Conversations about school events and job promotions littered the air. When the turkey or whatever festive meal we were eating hit the table, disagreements stopped and love surrounded. I never knew what it was like to have a family where both Mom and Dad were at the head of the table, but it didn’t matter because until one Thanksgiving, the love was there and it was all that I ever knew.
Before I turned twelve, I never understood what a classic family dinner looked like. Mom taking the pies out of the oven, Dad carving the turkey and even dropping a piece or two on the floor for the dog. It wasn’t until I went to one of my best friends house for her Thanksgiving when I saw how a “normal” family went about traditions and holidays. Before this, I never felt as if my family dinners were any less than anyone else’s. At that dinner, I began to compare my holidays to what her’s
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When I was younger (maybe 5 or 6) this came through when we were asked to draw what our family looked like. Stick figures crowded the pages of people around me in a common figuration of a Mom, a Dad, a couple siblings and maybe a dog or a cat. When I was told to do the same thing, I froze. I didn’t know what my family looked like, well I did, but other people didn’t and I had no idea how to make them understand. Looking back, I ended up drawing a picture of myself with my parents holding either one of my hands, but again, I was young and fell to the pressure of those around me. Later in life, when people would ask me questions such as the one asked at the Thanksgiving table that year, I no longer froze. I had a rehearsed response which I spit out like it was nothing but it was something. It was my