Every Saturday morning, we had family breakfast. My brothers Dan and Raymond, the twins, Walt and Warren, and I were all just a year or two apart, and Saturday morning breakfast was our responsibility.

​

We each had a job. One of us would make the toast, one would cook the meat, another would make the rice or grits, someone would make the drinks, usually juice or Tang, and someone would set the table.

​

But the scrambled eggs? Those were usually Mom’s job.

​

My mom was very particular about her scrambled eggs, and she normally cooked them herself. Then one Saturday morning, I asked if I could make them.

​

She agreed, but warned me, “You better not mess them up.”

​

She told me the key to cooking perfect scrambled eggs in a cast iron pan was to turn off the heat just as the eggs began to cook. I had watched her make those eggs for years. Seven years, to be exact.

​

So that morning, for the first time, I made the scrambled eggs.

​

And I cooked them to perfection.

​

Mom announced to the family that from then on, I would be the one cooking the scrambled eggs for our Saturday morning breakfasts.

I was so happy and proud of myself.

​

Seventeen years later, it was just me and my son, Austin, living in a two-bedroom apartment in Poughkeepsie, New York. I was 28 years old, and Austin was four.

​

I had just had foot surgery, and one morning Austin wanted scrambled eggs. I told him I couldn’t make them because I couldn’t stand at the stove.

​

To my surprise, he said, “I can cook the eggs, Daddy. I’ve watched you.”

​

Crazy enough, I said, “Okay. Let me see.”

​

He got the eggs and scrambled them in a bowl with a little milk, just like I did. Then he got the butter out of the refrigerator. I put the cast iron pan on the stove, pulled a chair up for him, and sat right beside him.

​

Then he said the words that stopped me in my tracks.

​

“You said Grandma said when the eggs begin to cook, turn off the stove, and the eggs will cook perfectly.”

​

He remembered.

​

And sure enough, he cooked those eggs perfectly.

​

I was so proud of him. Sitting there together in our little kitchen, I told him, “From now on, you get to cook the eggs.”

​

Just like my mom had said to me all those years before.

​

The biggest smile came across his face.

​

“See, I told you, Daddy. I could cook the eggs.”

​

It reminds me that traditions don’t have to be grand to matter. Sometimes they’re as simple as scrambled eggs in a cast iron pan. Yet somehow, those simple things can carry our memories, our families, and pieces of the people who came before us from one generation to the next.

​

What are your stories? You know the ones. The memories that make you smile just thinking about them.

​

I would love to hear them and share them with the Planted In Love family.