Grandma Terrell's Table

Last night we gathered after work and school to celebrate Sean's birthday. I pulled out my biggest soup pot and made gumbo with shrimp and crab. As I chopped and added tomatoes and onions and garlic and some of the last garden peppers to survive winter temperatures, the house filled with promising smells. The addition of rice and a crusty baguette and a Red Velvet cake completed the menu, but not the celebration.

That happens in many places, but mostly we gather noisly around the table where there is a sign that says "Memories Made Here." If the oak could speak, it would fill our hearts with stories. The table came to me when my grandmother was going to live somewhere other than her home. Today I believe it is called downsizing. She called it "breaking up housekeeping". My grandfather had died, and she, refusing to move in with my parents, went to live in a tiny apartment not too far from them. At the time, not married for long ourselves, we had no room for a big dining table in our apartment, but I loved the table that had been where we gathered to eat at Grandma's house, and I wanted to keep it. She and Papa bought it second hand around 1920 after their house burned and they were replacing furniture. Since she was selling what she could, and badly needed the money, we insisted on paying her for the table. She would only accept $25.00. It sat for several years in Mother and Daddy's garage. When we bought our first house with a dining room, we brought it to live with us and so began its role in our own family celebrations. That was n forty years ago. Since then, it has moved with us from San Antonio to Dallas and other Texas homes, to California and beyond to Indonesia. Perhaps it felt like a homecoming for the table when we brought it back to Texas in 1992. It was certainly a homecoming for us.

Last night, the gumbo was spicy and delicious. Sean's birthday candles lit up the room, and our gratitude to God for him and for our family lit up our hearts. Grandma Terrell's table was the altar of another blessing of our food and family as it held our bowls and our elbows and soaked up another memory, another story of family celebration.