Home for Dinner
Where Our Family Took Shape
A story about leaving work, being home for dinner, and the quiet choices that shape a family.
When I was in high school, sometimes I would take the bus from school to my father’s downtown Honolulu office so I could catch a ride home with him. One afternoon, I walked into his office where he was seated behind his large desk. He was on the phone, so he waved and gave me a smile.
I took a seat at a small table, pulled my algebra book from my backpack, and started on my homework.
A few minutes later, he hung up the phone and said, “Super Trace. How was your day?”
“It was good,” I said. “How was yours?”
“Not bad,” he said, as he wrote something down on a legal pad.
I went back to my homework.
Three minutes later, he announced, “Okay. I think it’s time we got out of here.”
I looked up from my book and over at the wall clock above his desk. It was 5:15 p.m. On the desk were an in-box and an out-box. The in-box was stacked nearly two feet high with manila legal folders, case law books, and loose papers. The out-box held a single pink telephone message slip.
Looking at the in-box, I said, “Dad, you have so much work to do. I can keep working on my math.”
He smiled. “You know what, Trace? You see this work?” He pointed to the in-box.
“Yeah,” I said.
He leaned forward. “I betcha this’ll be waiting for me tomorrow. Come on! Let’s get out of here.”
That twinkle in his eye.
We got in the car, and he popped his Oklahoma! cassette into the player. We sang “Oh What a Beautiful Mornin’” as we drove the incline through Nuʻuanu. Outside the window, nothing resembled the rolling hills and open prairies of Oklahoma. Nuʻuanu is a lush valley, flanked by sky-high volcanic ridges, thick with green and cascading waterfalls. We popped out of the Pali Tunnel and, just before the light at the Kailua Drive Inn, he suddenly gripped the steering wheel with both hands. The car was making small, sudden movements to the left and the right.
“Oh no,” he said. “The car is out of control. I can’t stop it. I don’t know where the car is going!”
This had happened before, so I didn’t panic. I smiled.
The car then stopped moving left to right. He looked over at me and smiled.
Once in Kailua Town, his out-of-control car pulled safely into a parking space in front of the Baskin-Robbins. He put the car in park, turned off the ignition, and looked at me.
“Okay, let’s go. But don’t tell your mother I’m spoiling your dinner.”
It was much later in life that I understood what my father was really teaching me. He chose to be home for dinner. Yes, he had a demanding job—one that could have kept him away from his family. However, he understood the significance of his family being together, even just for twenty minutes at the end of each day: time to connect, listen, share, support, laugh, and sometimes argue.
At the time, I had no idea how special it was to grow up in a home where, at dinnertime, my mother, father, and siblings all sat down to share a meal. The dinner table was our home base, the place where we regrouped and remembered who we were to each other. I was so fortunate. My father was home for dinner, every night.
Who was always home for dinner in your life?