The Tale of the Table

During most of our married life one of the things Jennifer and I have never really had was a good dining room table. Both of us brought small tables in to the marriage but neither was very serviceable. Jennifer even took the table I had, stained it and it’s chairs in order to give it new life. And for a time, it was neat and interesting, speckled and green. Ultimately though, it was the same old table that wobbled and had to have screws tightened on it every week.

Earlier this year we determined it was time to go shopping for a new table. Surprise! I do not enjoy shopping. And I mean, for anything. It is just something I do not find any pleasure in pursuing. I get too easily flustrated-that’s the merging of flustered and frustrated-with myself for not really knowing what I want or not knowing more about what I want and then I get further flustrated with others for well, mostly, just getting in my way while I wander around a store totally clueless.

Jennifer is a patient wife. She is also a persistent wife. She knew all along that the thought of me coming along for the search for just the right table would be something of an ordeal for her. But she reasoned since I would be sitting at this table night after night, I should have some say in what the table we would purchase should be. This despite the fact that she knew the recipe for me being along for the ride was potentially disastrous.

After all, we would be visiting several different stores. Each store would have plenty of things to look over and then to determine whether it was nice enough or pretty enough or matched the color scheme of the room it would reside in or would be practical enough for what we need. Just the thought of beginning this search for just the perfect table with these parameters in mind began to make my temples throb from the forthcoming adventure.

Of course, once the search started other factors crept into the equation. It is wonderful, isn’t it, to be met at the front door of a business by a high pressure salesperson that senses certain desperation when you enter the store and determines to make you the next notch in his sales ledger? In reality, the desperation he senses may be from missing his own commission from another missed sale while the desperation I sense is the effort I will need to use to get away from another high pressure salesperson.

Once we are settled and shake off the salespeople and begin looking beyond colors and table height and chair backs, we are faced with another test of the table buying process. Cost. After all, that will be a factor. And with me along on this search, everything I look at is just too high priced. Everything.

Jennifer’s patient and persistent manner guide me through this as well. Soon, we have narrowed down our list. One store has two tables we find interesting. Other questions pop up though such as space and number of chairs and table height. So, despite all the good work we had done, this day would not be the day we would resolve the table issue completely. We grabbed a bite of lunch and went home to further ponder our choices and to take some measurements and plot the set-up of the room with two imaginary tables.

Once home, we discovered both tables would work in the room where we needed. Both would add a distinctive flair to the room. And honestly, either table would have been fine with me. They both had advantages for our family. One sat square and tall and had tall chairs to match. The other was a longer farmhouse-style table in the shape of a rectangle and sat lower to the ground than the other table. Despite all that it took for me to go through this process; I knew the final call on which table would become part of the fabric of our world would be up to Jennifer. And, I felt that was as it should be.

Here is why: years ago, before we were married, Jennifer and I discussed many things. One of the things she often mentioned was how important it was to her when we had a family to have that family have at least one meal a day together at that table. When it was just me and her, those meals were special but now with Hannah, these meals become even more special, and more important.

We want Hannah to understand how sitting at that table with us, together, as a family, is something that means something. It’s important. It’s meaningful. It’s who we are. It is a place where we each belong. It is sitting there after a draining day of work or school hoping these few minutes charge up the batteries some. It is sitting there with family celebrating a birthday. It is sitting there laughing and cutting up with friends. It is sitting there discussing a problem we are facing knowing that talking it out can help find a solution. It is sitting there laughing at a lame joke between bites of green beans and grilled chicken. It is sitting there with no distracting television in the background. It is sitting there with every cell phone tucked away in the next room.

The table we purchased is a long farmhouse-style table, designed to look a bit weathered and worn. It has four chairs, two for the ends and two for one side plus a bench for the other side. In many ways, it reminds me of the table that sat in my Dad’s parent’s house for as long as I can recall. That is probably why, secretly, I was hoping this would become our table. It reminded me of my Dad’s family. My Dad is one of seven children. They grew up poor but always had enough to eat. Beyond that when they were around that table they always had each other. Even now, when I close my eyes, I can still see that table in my mind.

Several months removed from the table-buying adventure, I find the cost of the table isn’t important. The trouble of locating that table has faded away into a rather distant memory now. Even the thought that this table reminds me some of my own childhood memories isn't why this table has become as important to me as it has. What remains is how I now cherish sitting at that table every night with my two girls, my wife and my daughter. I love the few moments we take to thank God for what we have and bringing us together for a few minutes. I love the clanging of the silverware on the plates. I love the way the chair I sit in feels. I love listening to and participating in our conversations, no matter how mundane or how dramatic or how exciting each one is. I love the base this table provides for helping make each one of us feel more like family, like we belong here and that the moments we share here matter. From where I sit the table and the memories we have made and will make around it are priceless and worth every bit of effort it took to make it part of our home.