Family Dinner: What Makes Us Together!

I grew up in India, and for the first 10 years of my life, dinner began the same manner. My mom would tell me to bow my head, and together our family would deliver the dinner prayer. “Goddace gracely, Goddace goose, lettusce thanken. Amen.” I remember lip-syncing the words as if I knew the prayer, pretending I had remembered. In fact, for a long time, I thought the dinner prayer was in a foreign language, as it sounded so odd. Even though I had no idea what I was trying to say, I would bow my head and recite, “God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food. Amen.”

Each evening our family would sit down on a white floor in the living room and eat dinner. We all would sit down shoulder to shoulder, in a straight line. I would sit next to my father, and my sister sat next to me, who sat next to my mother. My father sat next to a baby pink wall on which the telephone hung. If the phone rang during dinner, he would answer with a echoing “Hello” and quickly ask the person to please call back later. After the prayer, my father would turn the television on and we would always watch Crime Patrol. I would ask many questions throughout the series, and only during the advertisements my would mom try to answer my questions. I asked many of the same questions repeatedly, but no matter how many times I asked, my mom would always patiently explain again.

Many days, my father did not make it home for dinner. The phone would ring around five o’clock when my mom would typically be preparing our dinner, stop to answer the phone to hear he couldn’t make it in time for dinner. On these nights, she let my sister and I watch whatever we wanted on television. Often we watched cartoons. If it was later in the evening, we watched Doraemon.

Gradually, dinner came to incorporate more responsibility. It was my job to pour the chocolate milk, because I was taller and stronger than my sister, more able to handle pouring a heavy gallon of milk into our glasses. She was assigned to set the table, though I couldn’t stand that she always did it wrong, so I would follow along behind her and put the ceramic plates in the right place and refold the napkins. At some point, my family outgrew the “God is great” prayer and we moved on to our own, improvised devotions. My greatest dinnertime fear (aside from the presence of bottle gourd and ridge gourd on my plate (a nasty vegetable dish) my mother began to randomly request that I bless the meal. I couldn't stand doing the blessing that, because I didn’t know how to do it. Yet, once finished, I would sigh in relief that my prayer duty was fulfilled for that moment and hopefully at least a couple more weeks.

After my dad moved to America for a job promotion, dinner became strange. During this period we ate a lot of pizzas and Chinese. We did not talk much during dinner. My dad would come home during vacations and holidays and dinner became lively and home-cooked again, though pleasant conversation were forced. We did not watch television during our meals anymore, because we needed to “focus on each other.” My father went to America several times a year for extended periods of work. He came home, left, stayed, and sometimes he ate with us and sometimes he didn’t. I also started ignoring all of his attempts at conversation as my studies became all-consuming.

I wish I could say that we excitedly and intellectually shared and discussed our lives. I wish I could say that we stayed longer, enjoying each other’s company long after our meals were gone and desserts came, but I cannot. That would be the perfect acceptable picture to paint, but what actually happens is this: we eat together often. Not every night, but most. I pour the milk still chocolate flavored one and set the table for three, while my mom finishes putting together the meal. Usually, she cooks. She now makes soup, or salads very often. We take our seats, which are always the same. Mine is considered to be the worst because it is the place that does not face the television. When she remembers, my mother says a prayer before we eat. Gradually, I became used to my mom’s prayer, and after “Amen” we eat. Sometimes we talk to each other, but usually we turn on the TV― we have a big-screen one now. We watch the news. When the meal is gone or we are too full to eat more, my mom pulls a deck of cards from a kitchen drawer. She spreads them on the table, which is covered by red and white checkered tablecloth she made them a few years ago, and amidst of my sister and me, we each draw one. 

In my opinion, joint family dinners are something that will definitely go down in the history of our family. When we stopped observing the traditions of having a joint dinner, problems arose between us and the relationship deteriorated, and when we returned to the traditions, everything fell into place!