After 20-plus years, we finally give in. It’s time to buy a new dining set. There are only so many times you can reupholster chairs and use scratch wax before you accept it’s a lost cause. I now use the old, beloved table in my home office.
This table isn’t much to look at anymore, but it’s a true gift. It’s also where I spent the darkest evening in my life. All the memories collected there, before and after, derive their preciousness in relation to that moment. The bolts that hold the legs on need constant tightening. No amount of polish will bring back its original glow. Gouges and scratches serve as proof of many years of homework and experimental utensil use by rambunctious toddlers. It has silverware scratches and hot glue mounds. Black Sharpie letters faintly grace the surface where my daughter Jess wrote through a piece of construction paper. Alec’s school assignment on the water cycle required raindrops that were made with hard tapping motions. The raindrops live in perpetuity in the wood.
The table functions as a time capsule, in which each stored memory transports you to the next, through 20 years of family.
The finished shoebox diorama of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” sits at attention, just in time to be taken to school the next morning.
Hamburgers, hot dogs and baked beans are served during winter “picnics.” Friday evening pizza parties with soda are always a treat. We enjoy iced cookies from our favorite bakery after our weekly trip to the library.
“Don’t get crumbs in the books, please.”
“I won’t.” They do. A quick shake of the books is required before they go back to the library.
We bribe my son, Alec, to eat his peas with the promise of a penny a pea. Perhaps not the best of parenting jobs but it worked.
Jess, sitting at the table with the patience of the Dalai Lama, holds marathon sessions of Lego set construction.
“Mom, can you PLEASE get Alec away from here?”
Once built, the Burrow and Hogwarts Express don’t last long with a younger brother around who was “just playing with them.”
A 4-year-old comedian hones his craft to an audience of applauding grandparents. Jess serenades us when she practices her clarinet audition pieces. Her piano assignments for the next week come easily with fluid fingers while Alec practices writing his letters.
The kids log into their cyber school accounts while I work on my laptop and obsessively research our ancestors. My work gains a little respect from the household the year when Jess builds a family tree for a history project. It’s exciting to see her reaction when the connection to history becomes personal.
I cannot count how many times we follow the adventures of Henry and Mudge or help Grover overcome his fear of “The Monster at the End of this Book”. During evening snack, we read one or two chapters of “Matilda”.
A small photo album, with its distressed cover, opens to fading photos and the funky scent of the attic.
“Who is that? Where was that?”
“That’s Papa. In Aunt Lynda’s kitchen when he and Grandma got married.”
“You had a pool when you were little? Why can’t we have a pool.”
Between Jess’ riding lessons and orchestra rehearsal and Alec’s swim team and karate practice, we can’t enjoy a meal together often. But Sundays, we share, laugh and argue.
‘A cruel club to belong to’
Now the table sits three. My daughter still has a place at the table though she doesn’t use it. We lost her far too young and far too soon. I hate those phrases. They are cliché and ridiculous.
I was sitting at the table the moment I had to admit that my daughter had died. On Aug. 10, 2018, an ER doctor told me the devastating news, sparing no detail. Jess had died in a car accident. I knew the whole ugly truth. I was numb. Later that night, I sat here speaking with a representative from Gift of Life. Answering health questions about Jess and giving permission for organ harvesting. I needed to know, even then, that something good would come out of this.
At this table, my voice croaked, barely above a whisper, “New claim,” on the insurance company’s automated system. The details of the call are a blur. I’m sure that I gave all necessary information and received polite, rehearsed condolences.
I know that I am not the only person to have suffered this loss. That breaks my heart. It’s a cruel club to belong to.
Memories and work the best medicine for grief
There is a weird sort of nether realm that I feel myself in. Not having the same place in the world, I once had as a parent of two living children. I muddle through to the best of my ability. When it gets too hard, I sit at this table and remember. Jess is never far from my memory. The Rimsky-Korsakov masterpiece, “Scheherazade” plays on the radio. I sink into the memory of Jess playing this song with the Pittsburgh Youth Philharmonic Orchestra. Those mystical notes, the sweet strings, the brilliant woodwinds.
I remember, too, the earthy mix of horse sweat and leather from the bridle that was cleaned and conditioned at this table. Each is a flash of what could have been and what will not be. A recollection of what was.
This table now holds my laptop. Copies of birth and death certificates, marriage records and obituaries are strewn across the surface. Work can ease the pain if you let it. It’s easy to lose time and thought when researching family histories.
Framed pictures of the kids at various ages stand at attention. Alec in his U.S. Army uniform. Both kids in front of a Christmas tree. A photo taken just before walking in the Coraopolis Memorial Day Parade.
There is a horse stock pin and swimmer pin representing Jess and Alec’s interests. My pens and pencils are collected in a Sewickley Public Library mug.
Alec told me of his plan to join the army before he graduated from high school at this desk. Do I try to talk him out of it? Do I support his decision? Do I have any bearing on his decision making?
“Please watch over your brother, Jess,” I whisper. Hoping that in whatever place comes next, she hears my plea.
Learning to treasure ‘every ding and scratch’
I came across a picture book biography about Margaret Wise Brown. Author Mac Barnett wrote “Lives don’t work like most books do. They can end suddenly, as fast as you can kick your leg in the air. Lives are funny and sad, scary and comforting, beautiful and ugly, but not when they’re supposed to be, and sometimes all at the same time.”
Those few sentences ring such a truth to me that once read, I carry them deep in my heart. With all the sadness and scary that happens, there is and always will be beauty and humor and coziness. We make the choice to take one step at a time, one day at a time, whether we like it or not. Some people never look back, while others can’t or won’t escape the past.
I treasure every ding and scratch and hope that I never forget how and when each happened. A friend told me that we decide what we carry forward. The memories and objects we choose to save are as individual as every single one of us. We can see our lost ones reflected in these objects and take comfort as time passes.
Today, I sit at this table while talking with Alec on the phone. I very much look forward to our once-a-week check-ins. He’s a 21-year-old man, so I never really know how long the calls will last or what info he’s willing to dole out. But I remain hopeful that the conversation will make him feel loved and supported.
My hope is that my son will take this table into his own home and that he will choose to carry it forward. Maybe he will have children who will add their own messes, markings, stains to this dining room table. But if not, I hope that he can find something that’s just as meaningful to him to carry forward.
Amanda Hooper is a Sewickley native and children’s book author. She can be reached at amandahooper67@gmail.com.
MOST READ STORIES
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
