A warm deep caramel colored rock maple table with four matching chairs once sat just off center in the kitchen of my childhood home. Its room placement might have not been perfectly centered but there was no doubt where our family’s heart and soul resided. Conversations flowed. Daily activities were recounted. Homemade dinners by our mom served always…
More square than rectangular in shape. A soft smooth finish. Two extended leaves tucked under the far ends of the modest sized table. Three children and two adults seated mostly comfortably as one of us would be straddling a table leg depending on the positioning of the chairs on one side. Dining room chairs occasionally added to accommodate any additional guests invited to our table. We always made room…
My sister the first born of we three would be filling our dinner glasses with milk. She would place the filled glass exactly in the space where the leaf met the table. The milk would tsunami across the table and our meal. We would jump to assist while laughter filled our small kitchen. The reality I suspect was it happened only a few times but like all good family stories the tale has heartwarmingly grown over the many years…
The dining set now belongs to my daughter and her family. My son-in-law pulled one of the chairs over closer to my 15-month-old granddaughter so I could feed her dinner. Belle’s highchair was in a different location than usual and deliberately so. A bird’s eye view of the Christmas tree being trimmed was in process. I sat down to the sound of a familiar creak in the chair. The sound resounded with an impact as I reflected nostalgically about how many meals had I had sitting on one of these beautifully well-worn amber colored wooden chairs? My feet seemed to know exactly what to do as they easily wrapped themselves around the base of the front legs and my toes rested on the wooden bar. As familiar as almost anything from my early years…
My daughter and son-in-law’s home just outside Boston was busy with all things Christmas. Classic Christmas music playing. Each of us chiming in at one point or another. Missed words reduced to a hum but our holiday energy never skipped a beat. My son-in-law had selected a tree and was busily stringing the lights and trimming the tree. Each ornament selected was shared with Belle for her to see and enjoy. Her eyes twinkled as brightly as the white lights on the tree. She was all in. My daughter was cooking our dinner and food never smelled better. I breathed in the seasonal warmth and love of a young family. A home by every measure. Christmas was in the making. The scents, the sounds and the family that inhabit this home are firmly rooted in my heart. While familiar nostalgic sounds of one family have faded over time a new generation will now gather round seated in the same chairs that creek, but the stories and the memories are theirs to make…
“I sustain myself with the love of family.” Maya Angelou
