September 15, 2005 – Sunday Dinner in El Paso Oct. 2001

September 15, 2005 – Sunday Dinner in El Paso Oct. 2001

My three younger sisters are a study in contrasts. The oldest YM, the tallest of the three, about five foot six inches, thin as a reed and an attractive clotheshorse, is outgoing and methodical. At the end of October 2001 when we were having our homecoming, she was then the events manager at the El Paso International Airport Hilton Hotel and 9/11 had just put her employer in jeopardy. She, however, had already seen the writing on the wall and was interviewing for a position across the road at the airport and was pretty assured of getting it—she did, shortly after we left. YM is the only other of my siblings with a child, my niece CP, a lovely twenty-something woman a few years younger than our daughters ME and RD. CP was just completing her degree in fine arts at the University of New Mexico in Las Cruces and working as a bartender making lots of money in tips. She aspires to write and her job offers plenty of grist for her mill.

My middle sister, CM, is the sergeant major of the family—she did spend time in the military, an officer for a few years. She chose a career in medicine after high school and after leaving the military took up cardiac care where she remains until this day. She is my mother’s height—which is to say around five foot three inches—and build—petite enough to wear girl sizes in clothes. Her small size, however, belies an iron will and a hot-tempered nature that time has only managed to slightly moderate. When she smiles, though, she is as lovely as an angel, an image I’m sure recovering heart patients are sure to have seen upon waking from open heart surgery. However, the image changes once in rehab, when she has him up on his feet walking on a treadmill and longing to end the torture only to have her urging them on for just a few more minutes—and not politely I might add.

The youngest of my three sisters is the free spirited one who reminds me of a bee, buzzing about from one flower to another. When ME and RD were young, Aunt DD was the one who hauled them around to movies and to activities she was sure they would enjoy. There is a video of her taken at a horse stable somewhere in the outskirts of El Paso. Three riders are on horseback, YM and her husband back then KP and DD. From the start of the short four-minute clip, DD is the one smacking KP’s horse to get him to run, urging on the other two to do something or another. DD now lives in Massachusetts and comes down to El Paso regularly to visit. She’s usually the one exhorting everyone to fix a date on their calendar to meet. She is responsible for this gathering, though her original suggestion was Thanksgiving or Christmas, which we all nixed because of the great pain and expense of traveling during the holidays. DD is about CM’s height with a slim build that demands petite lady sizes.

As you might not imagine from the descriptions above, the family’s fetish is food. My mother survived the Second World War in the Philippines when providing food for yourself and those around you was a constant struggle during the occupation. My mother proved very resourceful and managed to keep those around her well fed. I suspect that experienced colored her whole view of nurture in life. She spent our childhood exhorting us to eat well beyond the point our appetites were satisfied. We all resisted including my father though not without the scars of guilt from refusing our mother’s constant entreaty to nourish ourselves least we waste away.

When all of us get together there is a subtle dynamic that takes place. CM takes charge of all meal preparation. Not only is she the best cook of the three, but she has the organization to cook for the large group—assigning her siblings tasks such as cooking the turkey or making a dessert, while she prepares a variety of side dishes. Meal preparation begins the night before, in this case the Saturday we arrived, October 27th. YM had the task of cooking the turkey in her oven in her house to free up CM’s oven at her place for the baking she had planned—a couple of her side dishes called for baking in the process. CM assigned DD to prepare a couple of side dishes in my mother’s kitchen. In the course of the handing out of orders, DD occasionally forgets herself and makes suggestions contrary to CM’s dictates incurring the stern look of disapproval from CM and backing down accompanied by nervous laughter and the general amusement of the onlookers.

The following day, the preparation of the meal continues once breakfast has been cleared away. Breakfast for six additional guests besides mom and dad is a daunting task but ably handled by mother’s long time companion AV, who has been assisting my parents for over a decade and has become one of the family. AV speaks English about as well as we all speak Spanish, my mother and older sister being the exception. Both are fluent enough to explain themselves in the language and to understand any objections that might be raised in Spanish. AV prepares a breakfast of eggs, hominy grits, bacon, and toast with margarine instead of butter—my parents are watching their cholesterol. My youngest sister DD joins the other out-of-town visitors but the other two have begun the meal, beginning with CM stuffing of the turkey and ceremonially delivering the engorged fowl to YM who has preheated her oven in anticipation. Once completed, they join the brunch party taking coffee and participating in the conversation going on around the breakfast table. Lots of jabs at the two husbands, the brunt of jokes as they are the outsiders being made to feel welcome by being treated as badly with verbal abuse as we’ve been continually treating one another over the years.

The great pity is that my sisters and I have little in common other than our parents and our childhood. We have each gone our separate ways. But when we get together we renew the bonds and become up to date with what is going on in one another’s lives. When we are not reviving old jokes, we exchange updates on where each of us is in our lives. And my two older sisters brings us all up to date on the goings on with our parents, what new ailments they are experiencing—my father was getting over hip replacement surgery and my mother was dealing with her meds. The other subject of conversation is the state of Charles Upton—my father’s long time friend, who lives up the street. In recent years, he has become increasingly immobile and requiring more in-home care. AV has been enlisted for his care, a job she has taken to with relish. Between Mr. Upton and my parents AV has a full time job. She’s the breadwinner for her family a husband in Juarez and a daughter living with AV’s sister in El Paso and going to school on this side of the border. Each generation plants deeper roots on this side of the border.

AV is a stout soul with a warm maternal nature and a childlike innocence and joie de vivre. I’ve yet to see her without a smile and a twinkle in her large brown eyes. She has strong shoulders and bears her burden without complaint or self-pity. Like Mr. Upton AV has become part of the family and my parents are involved in her life, providing her loans at little or no interest to help her through financial hardships and doing other kindnesses that they afford all who are close to them. In return, AV is a hard worker who never complains and who has formed a strong bond with my mother and Mr. Upton, who to his delight, she treats like a small child as she cleans his place and makes his meals.

The Sunday tradition is that Mr. Upton joins my parents for dinner. AV has the day off, thus Mr. Upton becomes my father’s charge and cooking and cleaning become the tasks for my dad and/or my sisters. With the six visitors on this particular Sunday, AV came in this morning to help with breakfast but has the rest of the day off and the out of town guests will provide extra hands to clean up afterwards. With as many as ten guests for dinner and the occasion unexpected guest showing up at dinner time and finding themselves compelled to join the dinner—I cannot remember anyone who has managed to leave without taking something to eat. The likely guests popping in include our uncle SI, or our neighbors one block over—they typically come around knowing there’s food and expecting to join in. He is ER and in his 90s and she is 30 years his junior and my mother’s ex-sister-in-law, ME. I’ll tell their story another time.

CM arrives around 4:00 and begins to set up for the feast. She begins bringing over side dishes she has prepared and barking orders to DD to help set up the buffet table. YM is being directed to make final preparations: remove the turkey from the oven and let it cool a bit before bringing over. The dinner plates are brought out and set up at the end of the dinner table along with silverware and dinner napkins. Orders are barked about getting TV trays set up in the living room to accommodate the diners. With the arrival of the turkey, the wine bottles are opened and dispensed in glasses and handed to all the guests. My father takes the carving knife in hand and has us all say grace before he begins slicing up pieces of dark and light meat. Once grace has been said, I offer a toast and the wine glasses are raised and everyone drinks to the “wish for better times in the wake of the bad times we’ve had”. The meal begins in earnest with everyone finding their TV tray placing their wine glass down and lining up and beginning the march through the serving line.

As the meal progresses, everyone finds themselves chatting away between bites with those around them. I’m asking CP about school, her latest boyfriend, and her plans for after school. IM, ME, and RD are gabbing with DD about the latest development in holistic medicine. DD, once a delivery room nurse has since become employed by a Russian doctor who has a practice in a suburb of Boston. Though once a conventional MD, he now applies holistic medical remedies in combination or instead of Western medicine. And DD has become his girl Friday. My father and Mr. Upton are talking away about financial matters—Mr. Upton’s continuing interest in life is money and how best to conserve it. My daughters’ husbands are conversing with one another and occasionally joining the conversation between Mr. Upton and my father. My other two sisters are listening to the conversation I’m having with my niece and injecting comments as we talk. My mother sits with a contented smile picking at her meal. She seems to be engrossed in the scene of everyone eating. She is also chatting with her brother, SI, in Tagalog, the language of their youth and their land.