Monday, February 4, 2013

The Coffee Table

The coffee table was bought for my Grandma Anna.  She spent a short time in an apartment before she moved to a nursing home.  The table was light brown oak. It has two drawers and carved legs and top.  It was neither expensive nor antique.  It was colonial in design.  Just your ordinary coffee table.

When Grandma moved to a nursing home the table went to my mother's basement, with the other unused furniture. It was a quiet life.  The next time the coffee table was noticed was when my son moved to a studio apartment in the city.  He needed a table and did not care much about the age or look of it.  Those years we saw the table rarely.  He covered it with books, magazines, videos and take out food.  It was well used, if not well seen.

The next change was personal.  His girlfriend, soon to be his wife, moved in and different books, and healthier food, covered the table.  When they moved again, the table went with them.  They reglued the parts, and life for the table continued.  Baby " P" came and now the table was full of pacifiers, wash cloths and baby books.

The baby is learning to walk and she uses the table for balance, and to take her first baby steps.  Now they need more room.  My son called and said, it is time to get rid of the table. Do I want it back?  My heart said yes, my basement, which is stuffed and tight now, said no.  The table lived a long and useful life.  It was enjoyed and appreciated by 5 generations.  What more can a brown wood coffee table hope to accomplish, or be?  Good bye.... from all of us, and thank you, coffee table!


Please share my posts with your friends......      Judy

3 comments:

  1. So sad. It did live a long and useful life, but it was still part of the family and will be missed.

    My maternal father's small, rectangular, gracefully carved wooden framed coffee table with the black marble inset (and white and gold marbling through the black) had no drawers and little space. But it had elegance and whispered of possibilities for more aristocratic furniture than what we normally had or could afford.

    Years later there was one fabulous and beloved cleaning lady who worked for a while for my mom when Mom started to age and wind down and not be able to keep up with all of the cleaning. This cleaning lady was sometimes careless in her rush to finish within a certain time frame. She broke things.

    Despite how heavy the marble table was, despite the fact that when the table fell over it landed on a carpet that did have padding under it, the marble shattered. Mother was devastated. Her father had died years before that, and her mother died when Mom was in JHS. Breaking this table was like kicking their graves. It really upset her.

    Dad managed to glue the pieces together as best as he could. It was not perfect looking and obviously destroyed any antique value that the table might have had, but the table was functional and wise placement of light objects could mask the scars. Peace was restored.
    B.






    ReplyDelete
  2. Great eulogy to a wonderful coffee table! It certainly was a good table but its time has come to retire. Brid

    ReplyDelete

  3. Love the Ramblings, you should definitely start to print each "Rambling " section, put it in a binder to make a book. By the time the baby starts Kindergarten she will have a series of "Rambling Books" including the baby on the way !
    Just think what wonderful bedtime reading this could be!

    Have a good night,
    Hildy

    ReplyDelete