The Last Supper

On Thursday, my brother drove the 2 ½ hours north from Indianapolis to spend one last night together in our old house, just the 4 of us. Dinner was a bit surreal.

Growing up, dinner was a BIG DEAL. Mom had dinner on the table every night at 5:30 sharp. It didn’t matter if you were hungry or not. It didn’t matter if you were home or not, you just knew that every night at 5:30 sharp, dinner was on the table, and if you were smart you’d be there to eat it. (Of course, my friends in high school quickly got on to this fact and so about 3 nights a week one of my friends would show up at 5:28 for the meal. Mom was great like that.)

So on Thursday night, Mom, Dad, Nick and I sat down at the table for the last time. As we sat, I noticed that we were out of place. So before we all got seated, I stopped and said, “Wait, this is not right,” and as if by memory we all immediately moved to our “right seats.”

I always faced the clock. Nick faced the kitchen across from me. Dad faced the front door and mom faced the window. It was just how it was.

So there we sat, eating a roast like mom had made hundreds of times before having one final time around the table as “the family.” No friends. No girlfriends. No where to go. Only one place to be, Home, at the dinner table.

It was surreal. (To the best of my knowledge the last time the 4 of us had done that was somewhere around August of 1991…) Crazy.

What a week. What a whirlwind of emotion. What memories. 3908 will always have a place in my heart, but it’s not home anymore. Home is wherever my wife and two boys are sleeping. Home is where the memories are being made TODAY! Home is right in the next room.

…it’s good to be home…

Matt