Shabbat at Waterpark Road

Friday evening at my parents' house had a particular quality I have never fully been able to describe. By six o'clock the house smelled of soup and the table was set and the candles were ready and something in the atmosphere had shifted — the week was receding and something quieter was arriving. Dad would come in from the shop, still in his work clothes, and twenty minutes later he would be at the table in a clean shirt looking like a different person. The kiddush in his voice. The same blessing, every week, for fifty years. That is not nothing.