A Perfect Sized Table

“We will need the extra table,” I remark to my husband, Kevin, as I write down a menu for an upcoming family dinner.

Carne asada. Tortillas. Salsa.

“I think we’ll have street tacos.”

I add cheese to the list. And avocados.

“Won’t the table in the kitchen be enough?” Kevin asks.

I count the guests again. Four grown kids. Two spouses. One fiancé. Three grandkids. Kevin and I.

Twelve.

“The kitchen table only holds eight and that’s a squish.”

“Let me know when you need help moving it.”

I go to clear off the extra table—a drop-leaf table located in our living room. Due to its proximity to the front door, the table is covered in miscellaneous objects in various states of arrival and departure.

I remove keys. A jacket. My husband’s briefcase.

At its smallest—with the leaves down—the table sits two. When we pull out the sides and add two additional leaves, the table seats twelve. It’s the perfect table for any size group.

Which is one reason I wanted it.

I remember when my two sisters, brother, and I were choosing items from Dad and Mom’s estate—an arduous task of sorting through the belongings from our parents’ fifty-five years of marriage—including a barn, garage, outbuildings, and their two-story home with complete basement. The items were detailed in a six-page, two-columned, single-spaced inventory list Mom had created when she had learned her cancer was terminal.

I requested the table.

“The oak one?” my youngest sister asked, putting her check mark by the cedar chest.

“No. The vintage drop-leaf table that used to belong to Grandma.”

“I think the oak one is more valuable.”

“It doesn’t have the memories.”

My sister nodded in understanding.

I put down the list to check out the vintage table tucked behind a couch in my parents’ living room. On the surface was a collection of photos of Mom and Dad. A pic from their 50th wedding anniversary. One of them riding bike. Their wedding day.

I smiled at the black-and-white photo of Mom in the dress she had made for $18 and Dad with his bow tie and happy grin.

I thought of the thousands of meals served around this piece of furniture. My grandmother—the original owner—had been a South Dakota farm woman who had married a widower with eight children. She had brought a niece into the marriage and they had had three more kids, including my mom. Accustomed to feeding hungry farm hands, Grandma had served six meals a day on this table: breakfast, snack and coffee, lunch, snack and coffee, dinner, and before-bed snack. The tradition had continued even when the farm hands had moved on.

Mom had inherited the table after we were grown, but in the summer, when we all returned with our children and children's children to her dining room, she had pulled out the table. We had stumbled out of rental cars on stiff legs toward the waiting silhouettes under the porch light and had held on tight, words spilling in did-you-have-a-good-trip-it's-good-to-see-you-look-how-tall-you-are conversations. Getting into the kitchen had involved a receiving line of shoulder-slapping, neck-hugging relatives with Mom (aka Grandma) asking, “Would you like a little snack,” a phrase translated to mean food overflowing on all available surfaces—a skill she had learned from her mother.

In my parents’ living room, we had stretched the vintage table as far as it would go, adding extra table leaves and chairs as Dad (aka Grandpa) said grace. We had held hands in a room-for-one-more circle with bowed heads and lumps in our throats as we had passed the platters of food to the person next to us.

Nighttime had meant locating beds wherever we could find them, all through the house, but the cousins (our children) had stayed awake in the basement later than all of us, playing games and telling stories.

My dreams had been mixed with laughter coming up through the vents in the floor.

Returning to the present, I rub my hand over the smooth surface. Adjusting to a small table has been difficult as our children have left home one by one. One grown daughter remains, but she is often busy with her own life. I still struggle to downsize recipes for six and often have a fridge full of leftovers that nobody is interested in eating.

I like the hustle and bustle of a table full of food and conversation—like my mother and grandmother before me—but in a flash of insight, I realize my memories are not the entire story. Because I lived halfway across the continent, my trips home to my parents were planned to coincide with holidays, special events, and family reunions. My memories centered around an extended table, but weeks and months would have stretched by for my mom and grandmother, when the table was small, and they ate with only their husbands in a quiet kitchen.

I long to ask Mom how she did it. I ache with a knowing that Mom is no longer here to question on how to be the matriarch of a spreading family, and how to manage downsizing from the crowd to the two.

Yet, in retrospect, I realize Mom left me an unspoken message.

When not in use, Mom had kept photos of her and Dad on the table, a table folded down to its smallest size. Pictures of kids and grandkids had filled other nooks and crannies in their house, but on this table, Mom highlighted her love for Dad, the original love of a couple.

I skootch the table away from the wall and call to Kevin, “I’m ready to move the table.”

“Do you want to add the leaves?”

“Later.”

We jostle the table into position. Tonight, the table will be large and filled with food, laughter, and in did-you-have-a-good-trip-it's-good-to-see-you-look-how-tall-you-are conversations, as twelve people share life in an ever-growing circle with room for one more.

But for now, I leave the table folded up.

The perfect size for two.

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ABOUT LYNNE HARTKE

I share stories of courage, beauty, and belonging--belonging to family, to community, and to a loving God.  I am author of Under a Desert Sky: Redefining Hope, Beauty, and Faith in the Hardest Places. I teach an online writing workshop: Reclaim Your Scattered Story: A 6-week Online Writing Workshop for Those Touched by Cancer.  Each month, I also teach in-person at Ironwood Cancer and Research Center in Chandler, AZ and at Cancer Support Community Arizona  in Phoenix. If cancer has touched your life, check out a free printable: Dear Friend Who Was Diagnosed with Cancer, and a tutorial on creating courage flowers, with a download of courage paper.