The Table Papa Made

This morning I sat with coffee in the swivel chair in the window corner of the living room, and looked outside, and looked along the wall past a table to check the view out the still-newish window in the door. And then I really looked at the table.

That table, the piece of furniture that's been with me the longest of any, the very first piece of furniture in my very first apartment. I was still sleeping in a nest of blankets on the floor when I brought that table to my place. Plywood tabletop, rather rough-hewn oak stringers and legs, my father created it. On the weekend home when I got it, I stained and polyurethaned it.

Papa was retired from farming when he made that table, and was spending lots of time on various woodworking projects of his choosing, working mostly with oak, building benches and coffee tables of his own, particular, sturdy and very functional design. But I needed a kitchen table, one both big enough to squeeze four people around it if I wanted, and small enough so I wouldn't feel lost and lonely eating there alone. One that I could put into the trunk of my car (cars were bigger then) to carry along whenever I moved, for I was not nearly settled in my life.

Papa was not a talkative man, and I was his youngest child. Sometimes I wonder if he'd just seen in his life so much of struggle and drama and recognizing the hard lessons of how things really are, that he figured that whatever he said or didn't say to me made little or no difference, that life would happen to me just like life had happened to him. Anyway, we didn't communicate much, and when we tried we didn't do it well. He made the table that he made, not the table I'd imagined. I accepted it with quiet thanks, finished it, and took it with. It wasn't wonderful, to my mind, but it would be good enough for a while.

And then he suddenly died.

This morning I looked at that table again and asked myself, Why have you carted this thing with you, always? Why not just get rid of it, have a bit more beauty, perhaps, or empty space? And suddenly I knew in a conscious way what perhaps I've always known in an unconscious way. I realized this rather ugly piece of furniture, this wood shaped by my father's mind and hands, carries in its lines and fibers some of the essence of the gift of love my father wished to give me.

He had no gift of eloquence, no easy banter, no flow of words for me. But he was willing to spend time, thought, energy, all his accumulated best, to create what he imagined I wanted, a table that would suit me, that would please me immediately and also be sturdy enough to serve my needs well for years to come.

I have stumbled around, searching, wanting to feel in my memory some experienced reality of my father's love. Meanwhile I overlooked that love still present in my days, given in the homely piece of furniture crafted specifically for me. But I guess I knew, for I carried it along these past forty-plus years. When the time comes I believe I can now graciously surrender the thing-ness of it, for having welcomed into my heart at least some of the underlying spirit and meaning of it.

Meanwhile, that table is still so sturdy and serviceable that it will withstand any kind of wear.

Yesterday the early clouds dissipated and the day became warm and sunny. I collected two bouquets of daffodils. Usually I just let them fade on the stem, but this year I knew yesterday's sudden heat would likely finish some of them anyway, and there are many blossoms now, on plants collected and naturalized over decades, and I just wanted these blooms in my living space. I can smell them, their sweet, fresh scent, when I come from another part of the house. Today, after morning rain, comes sunshine again, and patches of blue, to be followed again later by more rain.