Last Saturday's family get-together got me thinking about how one generation succeeds another and how that affects my perspective of family holidays and other events.
As a child, I remember traveling to see my mother's parents. They lived in a multi-story apartment building in downtown Portland (with an elevator and two levels of basement parking - pretty intriguing for a kid from Corvallis!). Along with my siblings, I was one of the youngest in attendance.
The grandparents served a big Thanksgiving dinner every year on a round table that took up most of their living room. Everything seemed interesting and different, from the delicious turkey eaten with sterling silver to the apartment windows looking over the Park Blocks.
As a young wife and mother, I usually had responsibilities related to food served at family dinners (somehow I earned the title of "Gravy Maker") as well as keeping track of my son. Usually there was an older generation as well as a younger generation present.
Sometimes I was the hostess, responsible not only for food but also for adequate seating, clean bathrooms, etc. Not to mention preparations prior to and cleanup afterward! If I wasn't the hostess, there was usually a potluck dish to take and always a certain amount of packing and a drive to another city or town.
Last Saturday, my son helped me to bake a ham, load the car, and drive about 30 minutes to visit with family. I didn't have to do a lot of preparation, serving, or cleanup afterward. But, the biggest difference was when I realized I was the oldest person there - every person present was younger than me.
All of my life, I knew that something like this would happen eventually, but I never spent time thinking about it. One year followed another, one generation followed another, and suddenly I had a vivid reminder that I was in a new place in my life - a place I had not planned for as I had planned for college, work, marriage and motherhood.
Here I am. Stay tuned.
