Glue of a Family

What holds you family together? What tradition keeps your family acting like a family. Maybe your household bonds over TV, or enjoys a family game night, or like many families you probably eat dinner together. The tradition in my family that bonds us is very similar but somewhat different, instead of eating dinner we collectively cook a family breakfast.
During most days of the week from my room I can hear the doors creaking at random intervals from one another, representing someone leaving their room to begin their independent morning routine. Like every norm, or rule this one has an exception because on Sundays although we still get up at slightly different times the intervals are much closer and our routines are no longer completely independent of one anothers. My mother or father will typically get up before everyone else and begin to prepare the meal, then we all get out of bed one by one shortly after. As second to wake I Typically help the present cook that day, my sister, brother, and other parent typically aren’t very far behind. We all function as one machine, focusing on our individual portion of the overall meal.
The meals that my mother or father prepare on Sundays consist largely of a Jamaican style, meaning they contain a lot of assorted yams, natural spices from the region, fish, pepper, green bananas, Ackee, Jamaican breakfast dumplings, the smell of black pepper, foreign spices, oils, and the meals become beautiful splashes of color with all the different vegetables and fruits Jamaicans like to incorporate into their meals. Through helping in the kitchen I delightfully learn so much about the Jamaican heritage, and our family, and of course I learn about the food of our people.
When the food is ready we all work together to set the table before sitting. Once everyone has joined at the table we take time to bless the food and enjoy. We don’t just sit and eat though, in our family Sundays have become a perfect time to converse about our lives, what’s happened in our week and our plans for the upcoming week.
Family breakfasts on Sunday serve as the backbone of our family. They help us remain informed in the lives of each other. Without family breakfast we’d run the risk of being pulled apart more and more by the relentless void of ignorance, becoming more distant with the passing weeks only learning about the other’s lives in random passing or through the grapevine almost as if we weren’t a family at all. Family breakfast is a tradition that holds our families together, essentially the glue of the family’s relationship and well being.