The Best Part of the Weekend

The little TH never stopped, from 9:34 on Saturday morning right through to 10:22 on Sunday evening. It was Prairie College's grad weekend; we had people from all over North America stopping in.

We rushed through shepherd's pies, chicken and asparagus crepes, quiches, ribs and baked potatoes, and wave after wave of desserts.


And we were two workers short.


Jocelyn, Brenda (bless her for bailing us out yet again!) and I - with an assist from Taylor, the new dishwasher - managed to hold it together for the most part. It was exhilarating and challenging and quite a bit of fun. There were some amazing stories to be heard in the tiny pockets of time between tables. Elton John even showed up! Well, someone with crazy enormous Happy Birthday glasses and a colourful wig who asked if he could rattle off a number on the piano and claiming to be the former Reginald Dwight came for a birthday dinner with my new friends Katherine and Jeff and ten of their friends, all from Red Deer or Calgary.


But by Saturday night at closing time, Brenda and I had hit a wall. It had been just the two of us since 5:30 and we hadn't stopped once. "I'll do the rest, Brenda; you go home to sleep," I urged, and she reluctantly left me along with the last customers.


I started to try to make some sense of the mayhem in the kitchen. There was no clean cutlery left, no plates or teapots. And dishes were piled precariously on top of one another everywhere I turned.


Suddenly, there he was: my Dad, who had just been quietly sitting in one of the chairs of The Hug table. "I'm here to help; what can I do?" 


And in short order he organized all the plates and glasses and china and silverware that were still in the dining room, even matching the cups with the saucers for ease of washing later.


Then he came back to the kitchen and tackled the soup pot. We stood at the two sinks, side by side, me on the left, him on the right, ploughing through dishes almost silently until the water ran cold and everything that was left would have to be done in the morning. As we worked I started to be able to breathe again, started to think that this whole staff shortage wasn't such a crisis after all. 


No pictures were taken to capture the moment. No pictures were needed to show the deep knowledge of how much our Dad loves us, just because we're his children.


And I thought to myself This is one of my favourite moments ever in Nilgiris.


Me and my Dad in the TH. I glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the stove. 


11:11.