As I stared into my seemingly bottomless cauldron of Chocolate Gravy on my final Sunday night dinner, I began to contemplate how I had gotten to this place.

I never considered myself a cook. For as long as I can remember, my mom was executive chef of the house and my brothers and I were her always-loyal customers. Every night, I would wait for her “dinner!” call and then hustle into the kitchen, salivating like a dog who can’t reach the stack of bacon on the counter, eager to see what was on the menu for the night. And that’s the way I liked it; it was comfortable. All I had to do was clear the plate. But one day, my static, nightly routine, took a turn for the… unusual.

All I wanted from ages 14 to 16 was a cartilage piercing. As ridiculous and materialistic as it may sound, in my mind it was what was going to make me happy. I begged, I pleaded, I washed dishes, I even made a PowerPoint at an attempt to prove to my parents that this was something that I deserved. And so finally, after nearly two years of straining my neck, my parents and I decided to make a serious deal: I could get my ears pierced if I agreed to cook family dinners every Sunday night for the next year. In the moment, this daunting task barely even fazed my excited and perseverant self; however, when the time came to actually get cracking, I began to realize what I had gotten myself into. When the first Sunday night approached, pulled out a cookbook from my mom’s “Secret Recipes Shelf” and flipped through it in hopes of finding the easiest recipe, when suddenly my finger froze on an old, dog-eared page titled “Grandma’s Chocolate Gravy.” It was then that I knew that my little cooking adventure was going to be something much more significant than I had initially planned.

My great-grandmother Helen was born and raised into a family of 10 children in Norman, Oklahoma during the Great Depression. At the age of 12, it became her responsibility to prepare a hearty breakfast for her family every day; biscuits became the go-to, but they were bland and dry. And so came the Chocolate Gravy: a thick, gooey, bitter pudding-like mixture of cocoa powder, eggs, flour, salt and a great-grandmother’s special touch. Thus, it was only right that I adopted this difficult task as my own for my first family dinner, as well.

After successfully creating my own delicious pot of gravy and receiving successful reactions from my parents and brothers, it suddenly became clear to me that not only was cooking something I was capable of doing, but it was also something I thoroughly enjoyed. I decided that with my last year home quickly approaching, it was my duty to fully delve into this activity, making the best of my final few months with the ones who I love the most. I can confidently say that cooking Sunday night dinners has now become a sort of catharsis for me. And so tonight, after a year of cheffing around, I finish my concluding dinner with the recipe that started it all.

Finally, I thank you cartilage piercing. For every time I notice my infamous diamond stud in the mirror, I don’t think of pain. Rather, I think of the love and laughter I have shared with my family over our last year together, and for that, I am forever grateful.