CREEK ROAD GANG
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My Dining Room Table
Jackie Kearins Echteler
copyright 2009
In 1991, my husband, Steve, and I made the jump from apartment living, to home ownership, by purchasing a townhouse in Evanston, Illinois. We needed nearly everything, but furniture was at the top of our list. Over a period of a few weeks we furnished our new home. My most favorite pieces were a china cabinet and a dining room table and chairs. These were made from a lovely, medium colored cherry wood that had a subtle shine.
We had a lot of fun in our townhouse. It was great to have space (and a dining room) to entertain in. We had friends over to dinner and casual pizza nights and lots of holiday parties. It was particularly wonderful to have our east coast family come to visit and to actually have an extra bedroom and bath for them to use. I even planned a surprise party for Steve’s fortieth birthday including all our friends and his family from Massachusetts. It was one of the best times that we ever had in Evanston or anywhere.
After a few years, Steve found a job at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. We moved into a lovely, old, stone Victorian home in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and brought all of our townhouse furniture with us. By that time, I had noticed a few scratches and a few gravy or olive oil circles, on my dining room table. I would lovingly wipe the wood with lemon oil to clean it and to keep its warm luster glowing. Until the kid’s arrived, that is. After that I was busy lovingly wiping hands and faces and the table was lucky if the dirt and food was wiped off once a day.
Surprisingly, the table is one of the original pieces of furniture that has survived the kids. The living room chairs, couch and rocker are long gone; in fact their replacements are gone, too. The kids broke the desk chair when all three of them climbed on it while fighting over who could use the computer. Our bed broke when they (and their cousins) were jumping on it and the kitchen chairs simply disintegrated from use.
Steve and I have had an “empty nest” now since September when our youngest son went off to college. Once I had less parenting to do, I decided to start cleaning my house, re-organizing closets, giving things away and repairing items that had been broken for too long. I even bought sandpaper and stain to refinish my dining room table. Somehow, I didn’t find time to start the table project before Christmas or Easter or summer when the kid’s were home on college breaks.
Aside from the seeming enormity of this refinishing endeavor, something else has kept me from reaching for the sandpaper. I think the reason for my delay might be that, while my eyes can see the damage done to the table, my heart embraces all its lovely, beat-up history. It has so many scratches from dishware and card games and board games and cats having slid across it. There are so many dings and dents and scrapes from backpacks and baseballs and grocery bags that were dropped on it. There are countless circles from glasses and sauces and oils and mottled spots from wine, beer and milk. I run my fingers across the tabletop and feel candle wax from dinners, holidays and birthdays. I can see the kids fighting over who gets to blow the candles out and see the wax splattering everywhere when they all blow at the same time. I see us all having dinner together every night. I can hear Colleen and Corey fighting and her yelling, “Stop staring at me Corey-you are so annoying!” And him saying, “I’m not staring at you, I’m staring at the air in between us!”
I can hear myself telling Casey to eat more of his carrots and hear him hollering in his little boy voice through the orange mess in his mouth, “Can’t you see I’ve had enough?”
And I hear my laughter, despite my irritation, at the comical way his question sounds.
I can remember all of the friends and family who have gathered around this table. People that I haven’t seen since my table was new. Loved ones like my father-in-law, Harry, and sister-in-law, Elaine, who have died and who I won’t see again in this lifetime.
So, what should I do about this messy table? Surely, making it look better won’t erase memories and might even make my kids want to adopt it one day. But I certainly won’t have time to repair it before Thanksgiving, which is only a few weeks from now. I guess that I will just put a tablecloth over it for the holiday to cover up the damage.
This year as we go around the table saying what each of us is thankful for, I will look at my china cabinet and see my Grandmother’s tea cups and my mother-in-law's cranberry glass. I’ll close my eyes and touch my Mom’s tablecloth and hear Elaine telling a joke and Harry and my Dad talking about politics, and my heart will ache to miss them all so much. Then I’ll come back to the present and to the faces I see seated around me. When I give thanks, I will tell Steve, Colleen, Casey and Corey how much I love them and how very blessed I feel to have them in my life and at our dining room table.
We had a lot of fun in our townhouse. It was great to have space (and a dining room) to entertain in. We had friends over to dinner and casual pizza nights and lots of holiday parties. It was particularly wonderful to have our east coast family come to visit and to actually have an extra bedroom and bath for them to use. I even planned a surprise party for Steve’s fortieth birthday including all our friends and his family from Massachusetts. It was one of the best times that we ever had in Evanston or anywhere.
After a few years, Steve found a job at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. We moved into a lovely, old, stone Victorian home in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and brought all of our townhouse furniture with us. By that time, I had noticed a few scratches and a few gravy or olive oil circles, on my dining room table. I would lovingly wipe the wood with lemon oil to clean it and to keep its warm luster glowing. Until the kid’s arrived, that is. After that I was busy lovingly wiping hands and faces and the table was lucky if the dirt and food was wiped off once a day.
Surprisingly, the table is one of the original pieces of furniture that has survived the kids. The living room chairs, couch and rocker are long gone; in fact their replacements are gone, too. The kids broke the desk chair when all three of them climbed on it while fighting over who could use the computer. Our bed broke when they (and their cousins) were jumping on it and the kitchen chairs simply disintegrated from use.
Steve and I have had an “empty nest” now since September when our youngest son went off to college. Once I had less parenting to do, I decided to start cleaning my house, re-organizing closets, giving things away and repairing items that had been broken for too long. I even bought sandpaper and stain to refinish my dining room table. Somehow, I didn’t find time to start the table project before Christmas or Easter or summer when the kid’s were home on college breaks.
Aside from the seeming enormity of this refinishing endeavor, something else has kept me from reaching for the sandpaper. I think the reason for my delay might be that, while my eyes can see the damage done to the table, my heart embraces all its lovely, beat-up history. It has so many scratches from dishware and card games and board games and cats having slid across it. There are so many dings and dents and scrapes from backpacks and baseballs and grocery bags that were dropped on it. There are countless circles from glasses and sauces and oils and mottled spots from wine, beer and milk. I run my fingers across the tabletop and feel candle wax from dinners, holidays and birthdays. I can see the kids fighting over who gets to blow the candles out and see the wax splattering everywhere when they all blow at the same time. I see us all having dinner together every night. I can hear Colleen and Corey fighting and her yelling, “Stop staring at me Corey-you are so annoying!” And him saying, “I’m not staring at you, I’m staring at the air in between us!”
I can hear myself telling Casey to eat more of his carrots and hear him hollering in his little boy voice through the orange mess in his mouth, “Can’t you see I’ve had enough?”
And I hear my laughter, despite my irritation, at the comical way his question sounds.
I can remember all of the friends and family who have gathered around this table. People that I haven’t seen since my table was new. Loved ones like my father-in-law, Harry, and sister-in-law, Elaine, who have died and who I won’t see again in this lifetime.
So, what should I do about this messy table? Surely, making it look better won’t erase memories and might even make my kids want to adopt it one day. But I certainly won’t have time to repair it before Thanksgiving, which is only a few weeks from now. I guess that I will just put a tablecloth over it for the holiday to cover up the damage.
This year as we go around the table saying what each of us is thankful for, I will look at my china cabinet and see my Grandmother’s tea cups and my mother-in-law's cranberry glass. I’ll close my eyes and touch my Mom’s tablecloth and hear Elaine telling a joke and Harry and my Dad talking about politics, and my heart will ache to miss them all so much. Then I’ll come back to the present and to the faces I see seated around me. When I give thanks, I will tell Steve, Colleen, Casey and Corey how much I love them and how very blessed I feel to have them in my life and at our dining room table.
~~~
Biographical Note: Jackie Echteler was born and raised in Massachusetts. She studied Medical Assisting in college and has worked in doctor’s offices, clinical hospital and basic research laboratories ever since. In 2005, Jackie left her profession to become a full-time homemaker. She began taking an autobiographical writing class in January 2009. She lives in the Philadelphia suburbs with her husband, three children and two cats. Jackie's story "Ruthie" appeared in the September issue.
