The Table

I was cleaning our kitchen table, cursing as I tried to scrape out the food wedged in the crack running down the middle and scrubbed in vain at a spot of paint or ink or felt marker that is clearly not washable after all. As I was cleaning I saw the faint impression of words that had been etched in the soft pine decades earlier. Words I wrote as I was doing my junior high homework, pressing too hard on the lone piece of paper atop the surface of the table.

I remember my old kitchen table (which is now my kids’ childhood table) in its prime. It sat in the sunroom of the house in which I grew up, draped with the tablecloth my grandmother embroidered. The centerpiece was my Mom’s onyx fruit bowl filled with onyx fruit that she painstakingly wrapped, piece by weighty piece, and hauled back from Mexico in her carry-on.

That table served us well over the years. We gathered at that table for some great meals and some not-so-great ones. We laughed and cried around it too. I crammed for exams and wrote papers sitting around that table. It served as a witness to dreaded family meetings and was ringside for some terrible family fights. It endured angst-filled teenagers dripping with attitude, it celebrated birthdays, and it supported overloaded book bags at the end of a long day. It welcomed friends, even when these friends technically weren’t authorized to be there. It saw us at our best and at our worst. Frankly, if that table could talk, we would have to muzzle it.

And now the next generation is eating, celebrating, creating crafts, arguing and giving attitude around that table. Ben has left his mark, pocking the table with the pattern of fork tines as he pounds the table. Carmen makes masterpieces and occasionally forgets to use cardboard to protect the table from her creative palette, leaving behind reminders of her favourite colours. They have added their signatures to mine, adding memories that maybe they too will look back on in twenty-five years.

I finished clearing off the crumbs and the artwork and the toys that accumulate on the table through the day, pushed the chairs carefully under it(so the spindles on the chair backs wouldn’t dislodge again), and flicked the light off. Suddenly I’m not in such a panic to replace this old set just yet. It feels kind of like home.