Generations and Sunday Dinner ~

Last weekend we gathered for Sunday dinner. A tradition we have cultivated for many years. The first beginnings were sown 17 years ago.

Gary and Tracy had spent the early months of their marriage living with us. And of course to my delight, that included their first born daughter Shelby as part of the family threesome.
I can’t communicate how wonderful those first six months were for me. Rocking that blue eyed beauty in a chair that had been my great grandmother’s. In my childhood I had rocked myself in that chair, I rocked my daughters, and now this wonderful being named Shelby was in my arms. We rocked and we rocked and we rocked. No matter how difficult my day had been, that chair, that child, had been the healing balm.

But of course, as young married couples do, Gary and Tracy sought their independence. A house to rent was found, actually half a house, the main upstairs part of an old Victorian in Sellwood. Arrangements were made, boxes filled, vehicles were lined up to transport the little families belongings. The day had come ~ MOVING DAY. Out to the truck went the couch, the bed, the rugs, the TV. The temporary apartment downstairs once more became just a room, an empty room, blue tile, a few dust bunnies floating across the floor. The most vivid memory I have of that day was looking out of the kitchen window and seeing the pickup pull away, one of the last items they had loaded was Shelby’s crib. There it went down the street, there they went down the street, and there I stayed.

The tradition of Sunday dinner began around that time to reconnect after a week of commerce, cleaning, things of the work-a-day world. A re-gathering of the community we are. Other folks might have their hobbies, mine was orchestrating a delicious meal that began with appetizers, and ended with a yummy dessert. A real spread conceived and carried out with love.

Everyone was invited, everyone was family. The regular core totaled at least a dozen with assorted friends and neighbors welcomed each week. Many who came to enjoy a time of food and community would never have crossed paths otherwise. It was a great scope of interests, age, and backgrounds. Yet as we shared that pot of stew, crusty bread with real butter we were family. Dogs romped; children played or sat and listened to a story being read just for them.

Shelby was my right hand gal. Even at a very young age she would wear her little apron, sit on the counter and help me cook. Tearing lettuce, tossing the salad, stirring something that needed to be stirred. Later with her cousins Kendal and Taylor, and little sister Lauren it was peeling veggies, chopping, oh my! what a wonderful time it was.

Depending on the season there would be a fire in the fireplace, fragrant candles lit. Or maybe the Cubs would have a Sunday night game, we would cheer their wins, bemoan their defeats. But always we would sing “root, root, root for the Cubbies” and “it’s one, two, three strikes yur out at the old ball game!!”

A few hours a week, a time of tradition, sharing, fortifying the foundation of the clan, the pack, the tribe, the family we are. As simple as a pot of soup, as complex as the very glue that holds a diverse community and it’s generations together.

Generations, and Sunday dinner, a perfect combination. Timeless and precious.