A Seat at the Table

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost

There are many legends about the ability of mystical objects to draw people to them and invoke the power to change people’s lives forever. In the story of King Arthur, for example, a young boy pulls the sword out of the stone, and magically he is transformed into the ruler who unites all of England. Nothing quite so dramatic has been at work in our house, but sometimes over the years while I’m doing the dishes, I  glance across the room at our worn oak dining room table, and I wonder.

Son #1 and his wife bought the table and its eight chairs only a couple of years after they were married—a lofty purchase for a young couple with a new house, one child, and a baby on the way. The table was a heavy, oval pedestal style which boasted two leaves and was intended to last their growing family for many years. What they didn’t expect was how suddenly every chair at the table would be filled.

Our decision to build a new house in West Jordan left us homeless for about five months when we sold our old house to a neighbor, and our new home was still in the process of being built. Son #1 took us in—an act of generosity from his pregnant wife at which I still marvel. Fortunately, Daughter #1 and Son #3 were studying abroad in Israel. Sons #4 and #5 were on missions, Son #2 was on his own, so only Daughter #2 and Son #6 moved with us. It was crowded and a bit frenetic, but we laughed every night as we had dinner together around that beautiful oak table.

A couple of months in, my daughter-in-law got a call from a former roommate and dear friend who was living in Oregon. She was moving to Salt Lake to work and wondered if there was any chance she could stay at Son #1’s house for a couple of weeks till she found an apartment? I wasn’t privy to the conversation between Son #1 and his wife, but in the end, the roommate shared a bunk bed with Daughter #2 for several weeks—thank goodness. Daughter #2 had a meltdown the morning before Prom when she looked at her hair in the mirror, panicked, and burst into tears. Her new bunk-mate calmed her down, spent a couple of hours with her in front of that mirror, and saw to it that when Daughter #2’s date picked her up, she was glowing.

A few days later, Son #4 returned from his mission in Argentina. Since the house was already crammed with people, he was relegated to sleeping in the unfinished basement with Son #6. There was a couch and a queen-sized bed down there. I’ve never been sure how they divided the sleeping arrangements, but though they’re six years apart, they’ve been close friends ever since.

Son #4 had always been a bit of a loner. I worried that he might never marry because he had no interest in dating in high school. In fact, when he was about 15, I began praying that the Lord would introduce an exceptional girl into his life because I suspected it would take a miracle for him to find her. Son #4 fit right into the cheerful dinner group at the oak table every night. Plus, he was a good cook and relieved Son #1’s wife and I from meal preparation at least a couple of nights a week. (While a freshman at Utah State, he’d made a deal with an apartment of girls in his dorm. He’d buy groceries and cook for them if they’d pay for his food. A very effective part-time employment for a student on a skinny budget.)

Since the house was now filled with young adults, they often went to movies or the park together. Many nights they played games at the oak table. Once Son #4 invited the roommate to a concert with him. She thought it was another “whole family” event, but it ended up just the two of them. The next time they went out together alone, he took her to a romantic dinner up the canyon, proposed, and gave her a platinum ring with five diamonds which he picked out himself–asking no advice from any other woman in the family. Two formal dates. She said yes. And they will have been married 20 years next month.

Three or four years down the road, Son #1 and his wife accepted a job in Australia—taking my three grandchildren with them. (Sigh.) Because moving all their possessions across the Pacific was an impossible expense, they gave away most of their household goods. The oak table ended up at my house. Daughter #2 headed to college, Son #6 finished high school, Son #4 and his wife lived nearby. In the early spring, Daughter #2 called to say that she had met a boy, and they wanted to get married. And yes, she was only nineteen. ( She still credits BYU-Idaho with benefits well beyond just a degree!) I didn’t meet her fiance until just a couple of weeks before the end of spring semester. Oddly enough, he was from St. Paul, Minnesota, and had been on a mission in Salt Lake City. He remembers knocking on doors on our street in Kearns. She would have been fourteen then.

Daughter #2 was in California as bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding when her fiance arrived at our house for the first time. My husband had picked him up at the airport. He came into the dining room through the garage and was met with the sight of a dozen women in the family–including a niece who was living with us and was engaged too–all sitting around that oak table, now considerably more worn. It was surrounded not only by its matching eight chairs, but by several additional unmatched others needed to seat the crowd that came every Sunday to dinner. We had stacks of wedding announcements and reception invitations in the center of the table. A few of us were tying ribbons on the invites, some addressing envelopes, and a couple were just laughing and snacking on the treats.

The fiance looked stunned for a moment as I introduced his soon-to-be relatives. He’d spent his life in a quiet house with his mom and sister. This size family was way outside his comfort range. Then he blinked, pulled out a vacant chair, and joined the assembly line. I’m pretty sure the old table sighed in relief. I did. A few years later, Daughter #2 and her husband lived with us for a year as he finished his degree at BYU. While he was there, he lovingly refinished the table which was scratched and battered by a half dozen grandchildren, including his own.

Today it is still the center of our dining room. This summer Son #6 and his family are staying with us while their new house is completed. Every night we gather round the old oak table–a two-year-old in a high-chair, a four-year-old, eight-year-old twins, and their parents. All of us eating and laughing. Another generation influenced by the old table and its magic.