Dinner with the Smileys

I purchased Dinner with the Smileys by Sarah Smiley at the Military Child Education Coalition Conference this week, started reading it when I arrived home on Thursday, and am already half-way through it.  It's a heart-warming story of a family adjusting to the father's 13-month deployment at a time that the oldest son is in the cusp of that roller-coaster ride of the teenage years.  The family comes up with the idea of inviting one person a week to sit in dad's chair at the dinner table -- not to take his place, but to fill his empty seat.  Sarah's life is already hectic before her husband leaves, so the dinners end up being family dinners, like many of us have every night of the week.  The dishes and glasses don't match, she hands out paper towels as napkins, the boys don't always behave, but the whole family learns and grows.  Some of the dinner guests become part of their support network, others introduce the boys to facts of life such as death, childhood cancer, and Alzheimer's disease.  The children react just the way my girls reacted, and Sarah doesn't sugarcoat the fact that this is not always pretty.  But the process helps the children mature and become more compassionate citizens.  Sarah did not set out to accomplish this -- she just wanted a way to get through the time her husband was away.  Looking ahead to the next dinner instead of looking ahead to an ambiguous and changeable return date in the distant future helped them get through the year one bite at a time.

This book isn't just for military families, it's for parents raising teenagers, teenagers dealing with all those conflicting emotions that come with growing up, those of us who need a good laugh, and those of us who can benefit from an inside look at how long-term deployment impacts the whole family.  Then this book extends to us thinking not only of the family missing a parent, but the family across the road or at school missing a family member due to one of the many other reasons life throws at us.  For the second summer in a row, I've planned to invite a couple we know to my house for a German meal, and now summer is once again almost over.  For 10 years, we planned to invite our elderly neighbors to dinner, and now they are gone.  This book is a reminder that following through on plans like that is more important than worrying about whether the house is immaculate or we have real napkins -- just invite friends over and share an evening of camaraderie.