I thought about my Grandma Florence Hommel when I was eating lunch after church on a mountain in Dabaipani, India last month.
Dabaipani, which means ‘mineral spring,’ is located 15 kilometers from Darjeeling — yes, this is exactly where the champagne of teas is grown in northern India. After worshiping in a small church where we squeezed in 60 people with 20 more in the outside overflow — we ate.
In my grandparents farmhouse kitchen off State Road 135 in Johnson County, it was legendary that my Grandma Hommel always set an extra plate at her supper table for “Robert” — a name that signified anyone, neighbor or stranger — who stopped by and needed a meal. I still can’t figure out how there was ever an ‘empty spot’ for Robert’s plate, since Grandma and Grandpa had 11 children and a bazillion grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I miss my Grandma’s chicken and noodles (the noodles that I would help her flour and unroll, and eat before they were cooked), her chocolate icing sheet cake, her sweet tea — but mostly the hugs and kisses that met every family member and friend as they stepped into the kitchen.
In India, as we filed in where the fried chicken and vegetables were beautifully arranged on multiple plates, we forked our portions onto our plates, and found a chair or tree stump to sit and eat. I watched grandmothers helping the children get their plates. I watched grandfathers and elders in the church stir pots of vegetables and fry the chicken in an open-air porch off the back of the church.
I began to daydream about what encouraging questions my Grandpa Ralph would have asked the Indian and Nepali farmers if he had seen the plots of corn and tea growing on this mountainside, where you could see the Kangchenjunga range in full view.
It felt comfortable to be shoulder-to-shoulder in the food line — ignoring any rules of personal spaces — because it reminded me of Christmas and Thanksgiving as a child in the Hommel Family Farm Kitchen. It felt comfortable to be balancing my plate on my knee, eating, smiling and sharing stories as others walked to and from the makeshift kitchen with their plates in tow. Most of all, it felt like home to be around family — not by blood, but by their willingness to always have a seat open at the table.
