Goodbye Kitchen

A new kitchen. A big birthday present. What was there to weep about?

But creating a new kitchen meant destroying the old one. One  so full of memories. My children, all thoroughly grown by now, had done their growing up in that kitchen. I and the young ones had sat around the kitchen table on Shabbos mornings, nibbling at Shabbos treats. I’d watched as one by one, the table emptied, as one more child became old enough to go to shul.

The shul goers would wait until the afternoon for Shabbos treats. That’s what growing up is all about, delaying gratification and learning what’s really important in life.

The kitchen was always open. I loved having the toddlers with me while I cooked. I gave them all sorts of kitchen things to play with, then dumped them in the sink to wash them until the next use. I taught them some elementary math while cutting up apples: “One quarter, two quarters, three quarters, and a whole.”