The memoirs of a kitchen table

You have to pull yourself together. You can`t `lay over me and sob like that. It`s not useful. Tears don`t help. Besides, you make me wet in the notch you made last year when you lost the big ceramics form at me. I don`t understand how you can be so clumsy.

Yes, like that, straighten up and dry your tears. You used to stroke me over the tabletop and tell me how nice I was. And do you remember when you moved in? You patted me and clapped your hands and danced around me. “So beautiful you are!” you shouted. “I`m so happy I got you on the purchase!” You patted my legs and were proud of my forms. And you told me that we always would stay together, that we belong to each other.

What you don`t know, is that I was standing here for sixty years before you bought this apartment. I even remember how I was made at a small workshop. An old man did carpenter me and gave great love to his work. Not like the new chairs you bought ten years ago, they are mass-produced and of plastic and don`t say a word. While I am a real table made of wood, of Birch. That`s something different. I am of living material and I am durable. You have brushed the worktop twice, something that needs to be done now and then. Fortunately, you have oiled and taken care of me sometimes.

That`s right, go to the kitchen counter and make some coffee, it tends to make you in a better mood. Uncountable mornings you have padded around me and not gotten started on the day before the black drink is in your cup. I will never understand such behaviour. Anyway, freshly brewed coffee smells good. Especially the one in the kettle as my first owner did it. You have noisy machines instead. The wood-burning stove is also gone. The advantage is that I don`t get so hot anymore at one of my legs and the corner. But I still miss the stove sometimes, especially on cold winter days. You have a bad habit of letting the heat seep out, both the kitchen windows and the door to what you call the living room left wide open. In recent years, you have gotten better at this. Now you shamble over the kitchen floor, your hair is grey, and you seem to have gotten smaller. Not that I enjoy seeing you like that, but I freeze less.

Earlier days was here a lot of sound and action. I really miss that time as you and your husband tittering together and the children playing around.  Even the memories of the children pushing me when they ran past and drew off the paper right on my tabletop. And do you remember one time when one of them received a pocketknife for his birthday? He had to try it on me, something so rude! Put the tip straight into me and twist around. Fortunately, you came swooping in with a strict tone in your voice. You stroked the hole and told him he had to be kind to me. He never did it again. I was touched, I remember it well.

The children grew older. Suddenly a lot of teenagers sat around me with what you called homework. It was a nice time. Mostly they talked and laughed. Occasionally they started arguing. Then you used to calm them down with lemonade and later they also started to drink coffee.

I remember one time you baked bread. Eight at a time, you kneaded them at me. Baked four at a time in the oven. It smelled delicious. You put on your jacket and walked out the door. The girl and four friends came home. They laughed happily when they saw the pile of bread and ate a whole one together. Then your husband came, and he took some too. You came home, but you weren`t angry, you just sighed heavily.

A new period started when you became a grandmother. Again, I had to endure children's hands as they banged on me and spilled porridge and made other messes. You just smiled and dried it up.

Now also the grandchildren have grown up and visit less often. Your son is persistent every time he visits you. “Mother, now that Father is gone, it`s time for you to move to the nursing home”. I don`t understand what he is talking about. This is your home! Every time you answer him by tilting your head and saying that you belong here, and you pat me as you point around the kitchen.

But today something is different. They have all been here and taken away the other furniture. They even opened the cupboards. Why did they behave like that? No one noticed me. Even as I stand here in the middle of the kitchen floor, and I have been here for as long as this building has been standing. One of your grandchildren is the only one that even spared me a look. She measured me all over before she fetched up the thing you call the “cell phone”. She took some pictures. “Grandmother, I will put out an advertisement, surely there is someone that wants this old table”.  You answered her by whispering something I didn`t catch. When they all had left the room, you sat down on a chair, looking sad and bothered.

No, you were not supposed to lay down on me again, crying. You softly stroke my tabletop and sob even more. You have never behaved like this before. Can you stop it? You are making me worried.

The outer door opens and your son and a stranger walk in. “Yes, you`re right, this is a nice old table”, the stranger says. She is a woman with a big jacket and black coloured hair. “I`ll take it”. The woman and your son haggles for the prize, and when they agree, they shake hands. You agree unresistingly and with a voice too low for a faithful friend. “Mother, now you have to move”. Your son is suddenly talking strictly. You pet me one last time, before you get on your feet with a soft sob. The other two grab and lift me. I cry out. “Don`t do this! I live here! This is my home!” But to no avail, they can`t hear me.

The last I see of you, are you standing in the doorway, tears running down your cheeks. “Farewell my dear kitchen table, my old friend”, I hear you whisper while I am carelessly carried down the stairs.