The Kitchen Table

Table: Noun. A piece of furniture having a smooth flat top that is usually supported by one or more vertical legs.

My very first memory, as far back as I can humanly remember, consists of me laying down on my back on the kitchen table, oblivious, as my mother was changing my diaper. I could not have been older than 2. I remember there was by my side a yellow box with the picture of a donut on it. My guess is that it was cornstarch.

I come from a typical French Canadian family. We would sit around the table to eat dinner and stay seated for a long time, well after the meal was over. There was no rush to get up and clean up. The old round pedestal maple table (the very same table my father sat at growing up) is where we would listen to my dad telling us funny -and sometimes not so funny- anecdotes from his days growing up in the 1940s in the countryside. We heard the same tales over and over, the same people mentioned, and never got tired of his funny stories. Dad was a good storyteller and could make us shed tears of laughter, adding more and more details each time.

I genuinely believed, going through elementary school, that I did endure unfair treatment and unjustified hardship sitting at that table: mom would make me go through countless hours of extra grammatical analysis exercises and arithmetic every single school day; she doubted the efficiency of the school system in Quebec in the 70s and I paid the price. I owe her my ability to write somewhat properly, and the fact that I mastered my times tables at quite an early age. 

On a side note, 2018 saw me play a new role with my mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s. Reversed roles maybe? Times tables became totally irrelevant and grammar belongs to a distant past as she no longer can write. We had to relocate her to a new floor, more adapted to her ever growing needs and the old family table could not fit in the new location. In an effort to keep things as familiar as possible for her, I purchased second hand a smaller round pedestal table. A kind friend of ours refinished it for me. I doubt my mother even noticed the change. The family table from my youth is now in my garage, waiting to be set up again to reveal its happy tales.

 

Fast forward a few years, I moved out of my parents’ home, lived in about ten different apartments with various roommates or on my own. Somehow, I was almost always the kitchen table provider. It was my contribution to the pot. With chairs if we were lucky. Chairs I would get wherever I could get for cheap. I went from owning a used round four-legged ugly wooden table, salvaged from some used store for no more than $10, to being the ''proud owner'' of a white rectangular IKEA top with four screw-in style metal legs. I felt stylish. I remember my dear friend who kindly helped me screw the legs in securely with a power drill, as my cheap screwdriver could not do the trick. I was proud and happy with my modest purchase. I wrote my first report cards as a teacher at that table. I shared many secrets over coffee at that table. My girlfriends and I had a lot of dinners with cheap wine at that table. If that table could speak…

Then ‘’I’’ became  ‘‘we’’ when Michael and I met and moved in together on a whim. I would never advise my children to do this: not a good idea to learn to know each other playing house.  The time had come for me to put water in my wine. I will admit I never was really good at that, not even today. I actually believe I am becoming worse with age. It has served me well in some instances though. Back to the table, I agreed with Michael and it became a work/computer space. In all honesty, the table the man came with was a lot nicer: back to a round pedestal table I found myself sitting at. His parents had given this birch Bass River beauty to him. I even refinished it with much love and care. 

We had happy moments at that table: prior to having kids we would play Skip-Bo for hours after work on Friday nights, while smoking a pack of cigarettes. I had my first morning sickness bouts sitting at that table (yes, I did quit smoking after peeing on the stick), until the table became too small for our growing family. And for our aspirations.

We bit the bullet while being posted from Ottawa to Valcartier and bought the biggest table we could find at IKEA: birch Norden, 87 inches long (107 inches with extension). Never would we be able to outgrow that bad boy! There we were, four of us and soon after baby Grace in tow in a baby seat at the end of the table, thinking we had seen a bit too big. The table was oversized for our small PMQ but we had big ambitions I guess. While in Valcartier and living close to my extended family, our house became party central during the Holidays. On regular days as the family grew bigger and bigger, our table dutifully became a homework/folding/sewing/craft/medical care station while underneath often turned into a house or a school bus. All the kids wacked their head on the corners, like a rite of passage, one after the other. They all survived with minimal damage.

Hop on the bus!

 

My late father and Rose, my eldest.

Fast forward a few years, our family of 11 turned into a family of 12 post liver transplants with Kris joining the ranks, and friends of the family always showing a keen interest in joining us to share a meal, to our greatest delight. I love when people are comfortable in my house. I reintegrated the workforce a few years back with the luxury of working from home, always cluttering one end of the table with paperwork. Yes, I am a clutter bug when it comes to paper. As a result, I, the matriarch, found myself eating standing up 9 times out of 10. This somewhat uncomfortable and frustrating situation would change in 2018. Now that I earned money, I decided, against everyone in the family, to buy a new table. 

This ebony wormy maple monster of a table, 96 inches long with a potential of 144 inches with extensions moved in. It would become my demise. A curse on my family.

Our family went through drastic changes in 2018. And being the irrational person I can be, might as well blame it on the table.

As soon as January hit, my then 16-year-old daughter moved out on us following a fight with me. There you go: the big table was there, in my kitchen, half empty and giving me the finger, telling me how bad of a hard a$$ I can be. My daughter’s newly found freedom grew old after a while when money dried out and ''friends'' proved to be like mom and dad, i.e. living by some rules, and she found refuge at my friend’s place until we could sort things out. Thanks for my friend who played the role of buffer for a few weeks. We took her back home the night after she had nearly died in the morning from an anaphylactic shock caused by a Remicade infusion for her arthritis. However looking normal on the surface, things never returned to what they used to be. I never could manage to have everyone sit around the table. Relationships between siblings, once broken can be severed for a long time. I speak with authority here. My daughter has grown from this experience and is doing very well for herself now. But it seems like when the train starts derailing it won't stop. Her oldest sister moved out to attend college and to find her own space.  ‘’It’s normal’’ you’ll say. Yes, to some extend. However, I was never prepared for the empty nest to start pointing its nose. Empty nest syndrome, quite a paradox, considering I get so discouraged when I think our two youngest will only turn 8 in May. Some days I would like them all to be home, other days I can’t see the light at the end of this long parenting tunnel. 

I honestly believe I have cried on every single day in 2018. Shedding tears feels good. I am still grieving the loss of my father almost four years ago and am trying to accept the loss of the mother I used to know. These will have been long goodbyes. I prefer to do this on my own. I go visit my dad at the mausoleum on my own and I go care for my mother regularly six hours away on my own. I have never needed so much ‘’me’’ time as I do now, perhaps because I feel I lost myself over time being a good partner and a good mother? I need to gather my own pieces, scattered everywhere. I need to reconstruct my own person. Who am I? 

This new table is the pain of my existence it seems, a constant reminder that my family and my relationship with others have changed or are broken. I had great expectations when I purchased it, hopes to see it someday filled with my kids, their significant others and grandchildren, growing old with my best friend. 

Nothing is ever certain in life. People change, circumstances affect the way you see yourself and others.

Should I put the monster table up for sale? Would it solve everything? I have no answer to this.

My oldest daughter came home on Christmas eve. I got to hold her in my arms and see her joke around with her sisters. All of my nine kids were gathered and no one moaned when I asked for an updated family picture. Kris being away, the picture seems incomplete. My newly found neighbour/friend/sister took the picture for us and I thank her for this. 

I am turning the page on 2018 without any regrets. I wish for 2019 to fix what is broken, in whatever way it sees fit. I wish everyone of you caring for a loved one who is in need or sick the strength to keep doing so.

To everyone of you, I wish a prosperous 2019: work on keeping what you already have that is dear to you, and find the strength to obtain what will enrich your living experience. Spread goodness around you and avoid hatred at all cost.

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