Monday, November 7, 2011

mom's recipe for keeping our family close

let me take you back, for a moment, to the days when families ate together every night. when i was a child, virtually every Saturday morning started the same way. there were eight of us in that big old house on 15th avenue in Fulton. Mom and dad slept on the main floor, and dad fixed the upstairs into three bedrooms. My brother and i slept in the attic, remodeled to look like two mirrored images of a room, split right down the middle, each of us with our own space.
I would wake up to the smell of sausage frying, and i knew it was Saturday. I would usually be the first one up. Dad would be shaving and putting on "Old Spice", and mom would be mixing a bit of flour and a half gallon of milk in with the sausage to make the best gravy in the world. the smell of Mom's home-made buscuits were the alarm clock for the rest of the clan.
By 8am, we would all be sitting at the table, talking over the week and what we would do on that day. Dad was very busy during the week, but on Saturday he was ours. During the summer, it was off to the river, all of us piling into the boat, mom with her picnic basket full of fried chicken and potato salad. and in the winter, once a month i would get dad all to myself. on those days, after breakfast i would make a few peanut butter sandwiches out of the leftover buscuits, and mom would hand us a thermos of hot coffee and dad would take me hunting. our old beagle, Gypsey would sit in the front floorboard as we road hunted, slobbering all over my boots as she begged for a bite of my sandwich. I remember, dad would be different on Saturdays, nicer, more attentive, more focused on us kids. he knew this was our day to be with him, and he would change just a bit for us.
Thinking back on those days, i am inspired. i am inspired to be a better father, to give my kids more of me, more of what brings us together as a family. Now pop is gone, but mother is still making those buscuits and gravy every time she can gather us all together on saturday mornings. she knows the importance of gathering as a family now and then.
i have been shown the way to keep my own family close. mom and dad showed me how to do that. And it all started with sitting down to breakfast together on Saturdays.

1 comment:

  1. How touching! I love this story...how great that your dad took Saturdays off to be with his family. I love that!

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