(she/her)

Once, when I was 13, I attended a dinner. It didn’t resemble the types of dinner parties I found myself attending those days. I assumed an extravagant meal of fine preparations, as usual. This time was different. We gathered that evening to share an experience, a memorial to a man who had connected us all. Tonight he was missing. I was seated among family at a table, elongated by the addition of another slightly shorter table, both covered by white tablecloths. Seated at the shorter of the two tables, I was crowded in with my first cousins. At the adult table sat the Aunts, the Uncles and my dear parents. Youth of this family were about to embark on a unique, effective and unforgettable learning experience. The table wasn’t adorned with silver flatware, the prepared meal wasn’t served on fine china, and we weren’t making toasts with crystal glasses. Instead, in front of us were tin pie pans for meal placement and assorted repurposed glass mayonnaise jars for drinking. The meal consisted of the less desirable cube steak as the main fare–the kind of meal my grandfather and his family ate many years ago, strained within their means. That evening we celebrated the life of my grandfather, Pops. In one another’s company we laughed and shared stories striking bittersweet emotions, gathered in love as his offspring had done so many times in their youth. A new generation, now awakened in and by love.