Growing up, we had a set of dishes for everyday use, and then another red set of dishes that came out only at Eid, or when we had guests for dinner. I remember the long washing plank being brought in from the outside basin where my mother did the laundry by hand. The plank would be perched between two chairs to create a couple of extra seats for us little kids at the dining room table. I know Aunty Lima’s family came over most weekends, but I don’t remember all of use around the table. It was 50 or so years ago, so I’m going to forgive myself the gaps in the detail.
But I do remember the third dinner service, the one with the silver rims. Those dishes remained in the display cabinet and were never used. There was also silverware in a velvet-lined box that was too special to use. They were both gifts from my father, perhaps a birthday or an anniversary. It appears that my mother felt there was no occasion special enough to bring out the good dishes and the fine silverware.
When my mother sold our childhood home years after my father died, she came to live with us and her treasures came along. They moved with us from one flat to another when we lived in Johannesburg. When we packed a crate with our belongings to move to Canada, they came along. We lived in two different homes in Toronto before moving out west. The treasured, still unused, dinner service moved from one house to another as we did, even after my mother died.
Very many years later, I was leaving my marriage and getting a place of my own. I took the special china and silverware with me. While I want to say that making a courageous decision to move on from a marriage that no longer served me was a special enough occasion, it really wasn’t that profound. It was purely practical: there were unused, dishes, I needed dishes, so I took them with me and they were introduced into daily use.
I live alone and for the most part eat out of the same plate. Years ago, a friend sent me a plate of Christmas dinner and it’s the perfect plate. It’s smaller than a dinner plate so the perfect size and the edges are turned up just a bit to hold the dhal, gravy or sauce. For the most part, that’s the only plate I use and the “fancy plates” still rarely get used, unless I have company.
When my ex-husband sold our family home, I ended up with more “special” dinnerware. For my daughter’s 16th birthday, there was a fancy dinner for which required matching plates for all the guests, Fancy dinners require fancy place settings, so we also acquired chargers – used that one single time. When he was emptying the house, I rescued the next generation of good china and the gold chargers. They are stashed in the back of a lower cabinet. Occasionally, when I have a friend over for dinner the chargers and the nice plates come out, more for amusement than anything else.
Over Christmas, a local shelter put out a call for plates and cutlery so they could serve a holiday meal to those most in need. After a brief deliberation, and a silent apology to my mother now gone more than 20 years, I packed up the remaining dinner plates and side plates from her treasured dinner service and gave it to the shelter.
I cringe to imagine my mother’s reaction. I know they lived in a different time, where luxuries like a second (or third) dinner service held more value than it does for my generation. When my mother passed away, I found unused nighties, underwear and sheets as I cleaned out her closets – all being saved for a special occasion.
Today is a special occasion. No qualification required beyond the decadent luxury of being alive and having a nice meal to eat in my warm home. If that’s not a special occasion, I don’t know what is.