Hey Mom… I’m down here in the basement. Just wanted to let you know, I fixed your table. The one you’ve had since before I was born and all my life. The one I’ll now have the rest of mine. The rickety one you kept together at various times with spit, glue, hope and masking tape. The one with the cigarette burns and the water stains and the marred finish. The one piece of furniture from home that I brought you to have with you these last four frustrating years without your stuff and a place to call your own.
The one that moved with us to every single place you lived. The one with the hidden middle leaf that fell off with a loud bank and made both of us jump when I was moving it for you during a visit last year and even up to the last time I saw you I kept promising to fix. But never did.
Yeah, that one.
The one you lived your life on. Wrote letters. Read books and magazines and newspapers. Kept recipes and coupons. Smoked cigarettes at. Built photo albums atop. Paid bills on. Put pictures. And plants. Knitted and sewed. Set grocies down. Arrayed with food when there were guests to feed. Spilled drinks. Pounded in anger. Slapped in joy. Just sat at thinking or dreaming or wondering or doing nothing.
The one you never opened up wide without cursing the repairman you hired and covering it with a tablecloth — not to protect it — but because after you had the middle replaced like 30 years ago you hated that it didn’t match. I never minded that. I thought it gave character. Made it look well-lived. Told a story.
Well, it’s with us now and it’s all back together. Got the leaf back in place. Had to reglue a corner of the framing underneath and I’m hoping that holds. I’m going to bring it upstairs. Carefully. Either in the guest room or master as a desk/sewing table with some pictures and books.
Just wanted you to know.
Miss you.
Love you.
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