By Lisa
January is undoubtedly the gloomiest month of the year. The Christmas bills come in, daylight is short and the sky is cloudy. We make resolutions we seldom keep-usually something unpleasant we should do more and something pleasant we should not do as much.
I am resolving to be the things I admire in others. My mind gravitates to what has been lost a little too often and I marvel at people who focus on being grateful for what they have, especially those things that seem small and insignificant to others.
My little Mama and I have started making a point to have lunch together once a week. We usually go to this local restaurant, a meat and three (meat and three vegetables) that uses the same squishy Southern cooking recipes they used 70 plus years ago. I think of this location as being the “new location” even though it has been here for 40 years.
The restaurant is a family owned business passed down from parents to sons who ran it for many years. I imagine a restaurant that is open most days (except Christmas and Easter) would be pretty exhausting, and the sons recently sold the restaurant to someone else.
No one except anyone who has been eating there for the past 50 years would know anything has changed. The name is the same and the food is still good home cooking. They are open all day now and the portions are bigger. The tomato aspic in the salad area seems to be gone (who ate that stuff anyway?).
When I was little I carefully carried my tray of food from the serving line to the table. We sat in the small room that was the non-smoking room as the big area was smoking only. I bet my mama and daddy crossed their fingers really hard every time I insisted on carrying my own tray.
Now I do the same as my little mama carries her tray. She is in her 80’s and her balance is not great. She sometimes shuffles her feet and I tell her to pick up her feet and walk heel to toe. I am betting she said those words to me many, many times.
We still sit in the little room, although the whole restaurant is non-smoking like every other restaurant now. It is closer to the serving line and there is less chance of tripping over uncertain feet, sliding on a slippery floor or spilling iced tea off of trays.
We usually get to the restaurant after 1pm to miss the business folks crowd. The people at the other tables look like us, retired and tired, usually a daughter in her 50’s and a Mama in her 80’s or 90’s. The daughter finishes her meal first and patiently (or impatiently) waits for her Mother to finish hers, helps her put stiff arms into an ancient coat and holds her hand as she rocks back and forth several times in her chair trying to stand up. The daughter exchanges worried glances with other daughters when the Mama unsteadily begins to walk, her purse falling off her shoulder. The floor is slippery, the rug at the exit is uneven and the walkway to the parking lot is narrow and has a curb that seems dangerously deep. I walk beside Mama with my hands out in case she stumbles.
I imagine when I was a little girl, my Mama exchanged the same worried glances with other young mothers. I likely spilled a few glasses of tea, dropped napkins, slipped and fell on that same floor and stumbled off the curb many times. She walked behind me with her hands out, picked me up and cleaned up the mess and we ate our meal like always.
And today we ate our meal again like always, made from the same recipes handed down from generation to generation in the same room as always.
Things change. Things stay the same. We can mourn the past or be grateful for the now. I choose now.
A simple lunch shared with Mama. It doesn’t look like much to most anyone else but to those daughters in that small room, it means the world. I am so grateful for that little room and simple meals shared with my little Mama.