To see "in context" :
http://365project.org/darylo/didn-t-make-cut/2014-09-30
Yesterday, I decided to tackle trying to mend my grandmother's aging dining room table, which is the table we used in our family when I was a young girl. I have had it in my possession ever since my mother moved to her latest home, and so I have grown attached to it. But it has barely been used in the last year because it has had an essential piece threatening to give in at any moment, making it too risky to have any meal served on it.
When I turned it over yesterday to assess the actual problem, the legs fell off, the extension support beams fell (heavily), and I came to the conclusion that while the table has served faithfully for at least three generations, it had reached its final destination. Yes, I know that I could have had it restored, but I realized that I was not going to go that route--funds are not there, and it's time to say goodbye.
In the years I have had it, it has taken some hard knocks--it's been clawed at by a dog who wanted to get at our huge gingerbread castle (like multiple levels castle with a moat and everything) my husband was making for my niece and nephew one year (I left to go outside for one minute, just one minute, and bam--claw marks everywhere, part of the castle destroyed, and it was the beginning of the table's end--that was over 17 years ago). It has been the scene of every Thanksgiving in our current home and for every Christmas party feast I have prepared. It's been elegant even with its marks, but alas, it now needs to go.
But I fretted about what to replace it with, especially without funds to make it happen. A friend very kindly offered an old table to replace it (free), but today, I thought to myself that my grandmother had another table (oddly given to my father after my parent's divorce), which came in my possession after his latest move, and I put it upstairs, unwilling to part with it. It's been a craft table for the past four years. Who am I kidding? It's been the junk table for that long. It's on old "farm table" with two drop leaves and it is 71 inches long and 42 inches wide. Surely, it could at the very least have a tryout in the dining area, warts and all--it's been heavily used.
My grandmother has always felt a bit bitter that my father got the table, and she would sometimes pull me aside to say I needed to get that table; it was my legacy and she wanted me to get it when I could. I wish that bitterness was not there, but it was part of the sharpness of my grandmother at times and I knew this table was special--probably because it reminded her of the days on a farm she and my grandfather owned for the early years of my mother and uncle's lives. Who knows? She probably told me. I can't remember.
So here is a peek at it. It will work. I can still know that my thanksgiving will have so many generations of contributions on it--old silver, china, glassware--going as far back as an antebellum period. I love having the whole family with me when I make a meal--even the deceased, even the reminders of a dark past that includes slavery, and divorces, and rough times. The table marks remind me of a past and they secure a future. What will our mark be I wonder?
This is a rambling narrative. Have to run--will edit later, but if you made it through the mess, know you get a hot dog. A naked, "no condiments allowed" hot dog. With a crack to let out the steam.
