Breaking Bread, Break The Silence

As we sat around the breakfast bar this morning, and I listened to the Sunday morning ramblings, my mind drifted back to the Sunday mornings of long ago. When I was growing up, both of my parents worked, but during the week, no matter how tired my mama was, we almost always had a sit-down supper, having take-out for supper was so rare, I barely even remember it.

Breakfast on school days was cereal of some kind and a nasty chewable vitamin. For years, I ate the cereal but tossed that vitamin to the base of an old pecan tree in our back yard; that tree should live to be a million years old. Saturday mornings were pretty causal for breakfast too, as that was yard and house cleaning day. 

But Sunday morning breakfast, now that was a big deal. Whether we all sat down together any other time or not, we sat down together on Sunday mornings. Both my parents were great cooks, so it alternated who would be the chef each week, and we would have different variations of breakfast. My Daddy liked to cook fried eggs, bacon and real cut-up French fried potatoes. I believe my Mama's favorite was oatmeal, the real kind, not that one-minute mess; with condensed milk and sugar added in and pattied sausage.

It is the same in my own house now; Sunday morning breakfast is the best meal of all. I cook a big meal and we all sit down together. This morning I cooked oatmeal for me and my son, and as I watched him eat his oatmeal, taking his spoon and running it around the edge of the oatmeal on his plate; I remembered teaching him how to do that when he was a little boy, as my Mama had taught me, because the middle is always too hot.

Times change, or maybe people change and/or are different, but my eating tables have always been the place to unite. And for the nights I am just too tired or my mouth has run out of words, I let my family take over and bring me back to life with their stories and laughter.

Last Fall I bought a new dining table that would hold all of our family, my parents and partners of my children. So now during holidays or special occasions, when everyone is here and we’re all sitting together, good gracious at the laughter and conversation that goes on.

Cherish these times folks, don't lose yourselves in silence and call it comfortable. Taking the time to make conversation is taking the time to show your interest and love. And we all want to know, that what we have to say and how we feel, is something someone is waiting to hear. Enjoy your children and their conversations about their days at school, work, boyfriends and girlfriends; the test they could have done better on, or their nervousness about cheerleader or football tryouts. Believe me, it’s too late to wish those conversations back when they’re grown and gone.