Sunday Night Dinners

It's hard to pinpoint one specific "best" of everything that my mother has taught me. If forced to choose, I suppose I would select the strong importance of family that she instilled in each one of her children.

I'm the oldest of four siblings, ranging from me down to my seventeen year old brother. We're each at unique stages in our lives--my brother is building his law career, my sister just graduated college and is trying to find her place in the world and my youngest brother is preparing to move away from home and start college. The past several years, my parents' house has been a revolving door of children moving in, out, and back again. My mom jokes that she'll never get empty nest syndrome since one of her kids will always be living under her roof.

Despite all of my siblings being scattered among different milestones in their lives, my mother always makes a point to cook Sunday night dinners for all of us. My brother takes the train to the suburbs from the city, my husband, son and I drive over from our house, my sister delays her night's plans and my youngest brother stumbles out of bed so we can all spend time together and cook dinner.

Sometimes, I forget how special those Sunday night dinners are, especially when I talk to other people who look at me strangely when I mention that I get together with my family once a week. People ask me if it's a burden, or even an obligation. It's not. After a long, tough week, it's great to be able to curl up on my parents' couches in my sweatpants and tease my brother or read magazines with my sister.

My mom has made such an effort to enforce an "open door" policy at their house, it really brings all of us much closer to each other. And that is something that will be both her best accomplishment and her legacy.