This past Saturday, he had what was expected to be a small gathering at our house. Every year, in May, my family participates in a prayer group. This weekend was our turn to host. Prior to the day, I had announced my intentions that I did not want to participate. I mean, I was there every year, and it was always pretty stressful for me. This year, I just wanted out. My mother wasn’t too happy about it. It wasn’t so much that she was disappointed that I didn’t want to participate in the prayer part, but that without me there, she would have little to no help. The social aspect of the event seemed to be very important to her. It wasn’t until a few days before Saturday that I relented and agreed to stay. I made it clear though that I was only doing it to help out.

On Friday, we started preparing the food that we’d be serving. I prepared a double batch of blueberry buckle. I also spent a lot of time washing vegetables, cutting fruit and washing dishes. The preparations went well into midday Saturday. By the afternoon, we were all exhausted. As we laid out everything that we had bought and prepared, we started thinking that it was way too much food. Of course, it’s better to overdo things, right? Our long dining table became a buffet area full of the main course parts. The round dining table held all of the desserts. When the prayer part started, we all piled down into the basement. It seemed like we had an average crowd. As it went on, I started seeing more and more people arrive. Those people had also brought food items. When the prayer part was done. I went upstairs to see what was going on. There was a sudden rush to get everything organized. With all of the new food, we were struggling to find spots for everything. The two tables were packed.

Soon enough, the crowd came upstairs to eat. That’s when I finally realized just how big the group was. I swear, there must have been 30+ people there. After people got their food, they were finding places to sit down. All of our main floor got good use. I had never seen so many people crammed out on the deck. As more people went out, my father and I were rushing to the basement, trying to get more chairs out there. The temperature inside the house rose to 27°C from all the people there. The air conditioning wasn’t really helping much at all.

I spent most of my time manning the sink. I took people’s plates and plunked them in the dishwasher. We eventually ran out of cutlery, so I spent a lot of time cleaning forks so that people could get dessert. In between that, I had the coffee maker and kettle going continually to get coffee and tea out. We ran out of some mugs, so I had to clean some out when they returned. This went on for 2-3 hours! I was damn exhausted! I only got a little bit of reprieve when my father turned on the karaoke machine.

(Hey…this was a Filipino get together…of course there was karaoke)

All this time, all I could think was, “man…if I had left, mom would be so screwed.”

I think…many of the people who came did so because of the karaoke and not so much the prayer part. What really struck me as interesting though was that many of the people who were more interested in the prayer part actually stayed for a good chunk of the night. If I recall correctly, in past years, they left in the early evening. I really don’t know what was different this time. They seemed to gather mostly in the sitting room (away from the singing), but they were comfortable having conversations and eating.

In the end, most of the food was gone. My mother and I were lamenting that there were some food items that we never had a chance to eat. Oh man. I can only imagine that next year, when it’s our turn again, the gathering will be just as large. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m sort of glad I stayed, you know?

I slept well that night–and with good reason.