Remembrance

The sound of twenty-seven forks and twenty-seven knifes clinking against the twenty-seven china dinner plates filled the dining room. Five out of the ten children in the room chewed their food with their mouths open, despite the many attempts from their parents to do so otherwise. Celery was displayed in a vase, instead of flowers, in the middle of the table. Little Layla, only three years old, wore a pink, over-sized bonnet just like her mother, Stacy, although Stacy's bonnet was as black as night. I wasn't familiar with this anymore; it all seemed like a reoccurring bad dream from childhood that I now couldn't wake up from. I hadn't been at this dinner table in fourteen years. I wasn't excommunicated or anything, but sometimes it sure felt that way. Rumspringa happened so long ago. All of my siblings came back to the Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lancaster after they experienced "running around." Not me. Ever since I was a little girl, I was fascinated with television. I remember seeing one in an alley-way while grocery shopping with my mother when I was seven.