November 12, 2022

Reflection

TABLES AND CHAIRS

 

There are moments and there are moments.

 

There are tables and there are chairs.

We sat there as tiny kids in our high chairs - banging our spoon - wanting our food - wanting attention. Yet when it comes to baby's high chairs there an underlying disconnect. That half moon high chair table top - locked us in - and separated us from the rest of the family.

 

We know tables - the family table as kids - the gathering place where we ate our veggies and our birthday cake - the place we were excommunicated from when we did something wrong.

We remember the tables we sat at in school.

 

We might remember the restaurant table where we proposed.

 

Then there are our chairs.

We remember sitting there in the hospital - with a blanket - waiting for a spouse to get better.

We remember a rocking chair at our grandmother's. We loved to visit her and get to sit in her rocker  - even though we were so small - but she made us feel so tall.

 

"Who sits where?” is the question we think or say - when are at a table in a house where we are a visitor or a guest.

 

It’s interesting when we we visit certain homes. Sometime there is no special seat at the table for the King of the family; sometimes there's a seat where you better not sit.

 

How do you replace a spouse or dad or mom or son or daughter  who has died - when a certain chair still fills them - with so much emptiness?

 

Certain chairs would not get listed as worth a million dollars on The Antique Road Show - because they are priceless.

 

It’s good to sit there at a table in the evening of our life and jot down on paper - the moments of our life, That's old age or retirement homework.

We remember as kids seeing our mom writing home to her parents in another country or our brother in college or in the military.

Gather the letters. Save them  Write the history of our family.

There are tables and there are chairs.