The Most Important Meal of the Day

Breakfast. My mother was not one to rise early to make breakfast. On Sunday, after Mass, she would make up for all the breakfasts she neglected during the week. Sausage and/or bacon, hash brown potatoes, pancakes, eggs – fried, scrambled, or both, orange juice, milk, coffee, maybe fruit, and of course – catsup for the hash browns, or for everything in the case of my father.

Dad would eat quickly, either because his blood sugar demanded it or because he was in a hurry to be in front of the television to watch whatever pre-game show was in season. I don’t recall my mother ever sitting down to one of those Sunday breakfasts with us. I see her from across the kitchen bar; standing at the stove with a white plastic spatula in her hand, a short order cook is what she called herself.  

The four of us kids at the table eating and talking and laughing, Mother egging us on to share our stories, our lives, our tales and adventures of the week with her. Daddy occasionally hollering from the den for us to be quiet or simmer down so he could hear Howard Cosell tell about this or that player’s stats.

How breakfast on Sunday differed from the rest of the week. My recollection of breakfasts on Monday through Friday is that of a quiet time in a house lit by only the kitchen light. The soft sounds of 1960s top-40 music coming through the built-in intercom radio system – Winchester Cathedral, Feeling Groovy, Bus Stop and the sound of the newspaper pages turning as Dad sat next to me at the Formica breakfast bar in our house in Ft. Worth, TX. We were the only ones up. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I went to school earlier than my siblings, or perhaps this only happened on one or a few occasions. Yet, I have such a strong memory of it; it feels like it happened every day.

The shared solitude of eating raisin bran with my father. Very few words, yet I knew the love was there. I felt the security of our home and our lives while sitting in the glow of the red shaded lamp that perched at the end of the bar over the telephone and the yellow scratch pad. I was loved.

So, I agree. Breakfast is important. Good food and family and love. Oh, and on Saturdays we got doughnuts!