Just Wine

This morning, after my shower, I started thinking about Easter. My dad is very religious; we all went to catholic school, my sister and I went for 12 years. He goes to church every Sunday and was so active in the parish in my hometown that they threw him a dinner at a hotel ballroom when my parents moved away. That was where my mom's funeral was; our pastor said more than once that it wasn't how he wanted to welcome us home but it was still good to have us there and it would always be our home.

I feel that way, to some extent about my parents' house. They moved from my childhood home about six or seven years ago. That house will always be home to me. But at holidays, going to their house always felt like going home. We were all together, we sat around the table and shared a meal and then sat around and talked until it was  time for coffee and cake. My dad is Italian so our dinner traditions are very much his. Dinner in the afternoon. Coffee and cake and conversation the rest of the time. Thankfully we don't do the seven courses or anything like that, but I digress.

But now, it's different. We haven't sat around that table together since Christmas. We all have our assigned seats; no idea how they came about but I always sit in the same place, as does my sister. And now, next to both of us at the opposite head of the table from my dad will be an empty chair. A chair that is big, was always too big for my mother's small frame; a chair that will look overwhelmingly big on Easter and probably every holiday thereafter.

My dad has decided that he wants us to have dinner at the house that day. I'll do whatever he wants, no matter how hard it it for me. My sister feels the same although she's said she really doesn't want to do it.  She said to me "how am I going to go through her birthday and then cook in the woman's kitchen the very ext day?"  My mom was very protective of her kitchen, especially when she cooked. We usually weren't allowed into the room when she was cooking. If you dared to enter, it better be purposeful and quick and God help you if you got in her way. But this year there will be none of that. None of he threats to take away our dinners or to walk out and let us cook it on our own. That's all gone now. And I will miss every bit of it.

I'm not sure how I'll get through it and I don't expect any of us to do a stellar job that weekend. I want to celebrate her birthday; I think she would have wanted us to and I want to honor her with that.  I want to be happy that weekend, like we usually are when we're all together. But I know that it won't be all wine and roses. Probably just wine. She would have wanted it that way, too.