Patchwork Quilt

I loved the Jewish holiday dinners at my grandparents’ house. My great-grandfather would sit at the head of the table. Table. It wasn’t one table. It was 3 or 4 tables pieced together – all different shapes and sizes. Some tablecloths were big enough to cover 2 tables. Some, just one. And the last table – the table where I sat with my youngest cousins – had a tablecloth that was covered with plastic.

There were all sorts of chairs, several pieced together sets of dishes, flatware, and glasses.

It was like a beautiful patchwork quilt.

My first cousins and I would play hide and seek in the basement before the meal. We loved the back room where my grandparents and our mothers took painting lessons with Joe Hudson. There’d be paintings on easels all around the room. There was a storage cabinet big enough to hide in.

There was the room that my aunt used to live in when before she got married. That closet was a hider’s dream – you could go in one side and crawl through to the other side. She had clothes still there in some of the built-ins and I’d look through them in awe. There was the main room where the poker table was and all the records were. We’d play cards and tunes.

I just finished setting my table for tonight’s Rosh Hashanah dinner and I was struck by the memories as I admired my patchwork quilt table.

L’Shana Tova.