That Table
/This article was originally published in 2019 when our Nana left her home of 35 years to be closer to children. It is offered again today in her memory. -BH
As I close the front door to Nana’s house for the final time, I take one last peek at the now-empty dining room.
A hundred mental images flash through my mind, instantly filling the vacant space with an avalanche of memories. Memories of countless meals shared over an old and worn wooden table.
Sitting around that table was a place of unbridled laughter and heart-wrenching loss. Its wooden surface splashed with tears of both joy and sorrow. Around that table, iconic family stories were ritually recounted and repeated as if being recited from the sacred Book of Family.
That dining room table was where we celebrated all important occasions … including Thanksgiving dinners too numerous to count.
We won’t be having Thanksgiving at Nana’s this year. Or ever again. Not that this is a sad story - Nana is as feisty and outspoken as ever. But now she lives in a beautiful retirement community surrounded by walls and floors and ceilings that do not echo with the memories of generations past and present.
Nostalgia stems from closing a particular chapter in your life. From turning a page and knowing that you can never go back to that place or those times. Those times before the children grew up and moved away. The time before lives and marriages and careers faded from brilliant living color to the muted sepia tones of yesteryear.
That old wooden table was our family sounding board. It was the bench from which parents handed down decrees. It was the pulpit from which we shared our hearts and our souls. It was the stage where we told our favorite stories and re-enacted the greatest moments of lives well-blessed.
That table was the place where family history touched ground.
Every scratch, every dent, every watermark on that table told a story. Just like the people who sat around it for decades, its imperfections and rough edges gave it a unique personality and a singular place in the world. The original sterile pristine exterior replaced with a tapestry of family history gouged and carved into its soft wooden surface.
Improbably, that dark wooden table was a brilliant mirror that reflected the breadth and depth of the generations of lives that gathered at its edges for so many years.
As the gap between door and door jamb slowly closes one final time, I smile and say a quiet prayer of thanks. Thanks for a good home with a good table. Thanks for the place that grounded our family. Thank you to that table that steadfastly hosted a family’s passage through this life.
I close the door and the chapter is done.
