Around the Table

I grew up in a home where delicious, healthy, piping hot meals were as regular as the Dutch rail system. Always there. Always on time. Always fantastic. My mum has an amazing gift in the kitchen. My Dad has been known to say that my Mum could serve up grass (the garden variety) and he would eat it since she could turn the most mundane things into something delicious.

And while my friends would boast of evenings spent eating dinner on their knees in front of the tele, I always treasured the routine of our dinner time:the whole family around our small, round kitchen table, where, it seemed, we discussed the most significant issues of the world as well as the mundane joys and troubles of the day. We laughed and argued and shared, and although there were many evenings when we rushed off to our various pressing engagements (like the seven o'clock news or phoning our best friends) there were also many long evenings, particularly as we grew older, when the dishes remained undone, and we drank tea and chatted late into the evening.


I learnt so much around that kitchen table.


I learnt to be thankful and appreciative. To listen and respect others. I learnt that my ideas and opinions were valuable and important and worth listening to. I learnt that even if I didn't agree with the others, it was safe to say so. I accumulated hours of listening to history, philosophy and wisdom and from my Dad and an equal number of hours of family stories and heartfelt advice from my Mum. I enjoyed the company of grandparents, distant relatives, and good friends. I tasted exotic, strange experiments and favourite family recipes. I discovered that hospitality has less to do with the food and more to do with the warmth of welcome.

It was all about the moment. The togetherness. Somehow, amidst the activity and occasional chaos of our family life, the routine of our family time together around a meal offered something secure, solid and unchangeable.

When I think about what I miss most about living so far away from my family, this "time around the table" hits the top five. My family still gather, almost weekly, to sit together around the table and share a meal, to chat, discuss, learn and just be together. To share life. Mum and Dad, my two brothers, my sister, my sister in law and our three precious little people . They continue the tradition of regular dinner around the table, and although perhaps more boisterous and less philosophical, the history of the event is continuing to be made.

It's a sacrifice to be so far away from it. It's an ache that I miss it for myself, and for my children.

I'm working on building the tradition of my own table, here on the balcony of my wooden house. (see photo at top of this post) Valuing the memories and history of our own birth family meal times, Wim and I are trying to make that time treasured and important for us and for our children. I pray that around that table they too will learn the manners, respect and thankfulness that I was taught. I hope they will know hospitality as though it were the norm. I want them to realise that small as they are, they are highly significant, and what they have to say is important. I want them to remember moments we shared.

For a while, around our dining table, the world of Cambodia fades and we are just our little nuclear family, building our own history. And that's just the way I like it.