traditions

father's day lunch sparked something in matt...a desire for sunday dinners. growing up i remember sundays as kind of my mom's day off from cooking. i remember having leftovers after church and then having popcorn or something easy for dinner. but matt's family always had huge sunday dinners. his dad's reward for preaching. *grin* 

the next saturday night i took a chicken out to thaw and peeled a bunch of potatoes. sunday morning i made his mom's recipe for rolls and right before we left for church i put them in the pan to raise so they would be ready when we got home from church. we headed off to church and after church was over i asked matt if there was anyone he would like to ask over to share lunch with us. he found a family and asked them if they would like to come over, they agreed and we prepared to head out. however, it started to rain buckets. by the time we got home we were all soaked and laughing. as we hurriedly moved around the house trying to pick up for our impromptu guests, my phone rang. it was them calling to cancel as they had gotten soaked too. so it was just our little family sitting around the table enjoying the family lunch. 

as the 5 of us were sitting around our little table, memories were popping in my mind like camera flashes and with them sounds as well. i could hear my sister-in-law's voice in my ear as she chose the perfect roll and placed it on her plate before her brothers got to the table. i could picture all of us sitting around matt's parents table before there were grandkids, or even spouses. i had my first sunday lunch with them 14 years ago. matt's sister had only been 15 when we had started dating and now here she was living in pennsylvania with her husband and two girls and another baby on the way. i got pretty quiet sitting around our table. in fact a tear or two might have slipped down my face. i could hear the laughter that had been around that table. i could see matt's dad at the head of the table enjoying the meal. i could hear him telling a joke and then looking at me in expectation of a laugh. i could hear matt and his brothers telling stories from their childhood that i had already heard a hundred times. laughing still at the hilarious situations they always found themselves in. i could visualize all of the girls remaining at the table talking, while the boys headed into the family room to watch whatever game was playing. i remembered it all like it was yesterday. 

right there in that moment, i missed them. terribly. 

in fact i texted them, just to tell them that very thing. 

to let them know that i was going to keep the tradition alive. the tradition of sunday dinners.