My brother and his wife planted English peas in my parents' back garden. The space is large, though the garden doesn't take up all of it. It's just a plot about the size of a garage and driveway. Last week, the shoots had pushed through the hard, red earth and were ready for staking. Eventually, we will all help, planting okra, red bliss potatoes and melons as the weather warms. Everyone in the family seems to have a stake in what will come from this little plot of land.

We help each other in lots of ways. My family often accompanies me on restaurant reviews, which is where my parents and I were headed this particular afternoon. I had asked them to lunch.

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It happened so fast, but in my memory it seems slow, almost as if time stopped, embedding the image in the synapses of my brain forever. It was a white car, driving sideways across the highway, just in front of me. Within seconds, I had T-boned it, going around 70 mph.

At some point I realized that no matter how hard I tried, nothing was going to stop us from hitting it. That's when time stopped; and I waited. I waited for the car to slam with the force of a hurricane against steel. I waited to stop moving. I waited for the air bag to deflate so that I could run to the other side of the car to see if my mother and father were still alive.

In the hospital, my parents were on stretchers, my father wincing with broken ribs and a broken sternum; my mother bruised and battered from the air bag and seat belt – including lacerations and bruises on her beautiful face. It was around 2 p.m.

First my boyfriend, then my brother, then my sister and her husband all arrived. We sat vigil all day, including a period where I checked in, then out, of the hospital myself, just bruised. By around 8 p.m., we were all so hungry we could have eaten cardboard. My mother was sitting up in her bed, waiting on various test results: CAT scans, head CTs, who knows what else. My father had been moved to a temporary room awaiting tests, too, but it was clear he wouldn't be going home anytime soon.

My boyfriend, sister and brother-in-law went on a quest for food. Strange how even in times of direst need, we crave sustenance. We crave it for fuel, but there is something else about it we need. Ritual waits underneath a meal — an important ritual that brings us together. It says, "You are here; you are home because this is family."

They found corn dogs and French fries, plus a Reese's Cup and a Snickers bar from the vending machines. Everyone stood except my mother and me, surrounding her bed, dipping the fat, corn-battered dogs into bright yellow mustard. My sister's husband remarked that the best thing about it was the stick.

But I thought it was one of the most wonderful things I had ever eaten. I relish the thought of its weird sweetness even now. Five corn dogs from a hospital cafeteria. Five battered people. A little cup of peanut butter surrounded by chocolate. French fries, crinkled and limp, gone cold. It was one of the best meals I have ever eaten, or ever will eat.

The following Saturday, my brother and his wife staked the peas. Everyone visiting my recuperating parents seemed to, at some point, quietly venture to the garden to look at them.

They are remarkable in their simplicity. Quiet green tendrils grasping for life, wound in the twine above them. I stood over them with garden scissors for cutting my mother's forsythia, quince and camellia blossoms.

Time stopped again, and I could see the tendrils grow, mature; I watched as we weeded, then plucked plump peas from their soft, green womb. And I watched us sit down to a meal, whole again, with their crunchy goodness as the table's centerpiece.

We are here. And we are home because this is family.

Get into the conversation: Log on to my blog at www.ajc.com/tabletalk. If your restaurant is new, closing or undergoing changes, or you have a food-related event, we want to hear from you. Send the information — including your name, phone number, e-mail and Web site if you have one — to Meridith Ford at mford@ajc.com.