Lisa Rose Bauer

A strong family has well worn seats at the dinner table.

Author unknown

The table welcomed us every day. Day after day. The weathered piece of furniture and its accompanying chairs sat there silently. It never asked a question or commented on what it was witness to. The table never spoke up, never judged us. The table just gathered us all in a circle to share a meal or make cookies or play cards. Gathered us to talk about a problem or a plan. A hope. Year after year the table served as the central meeting place in my growing up house. I first learned about living in a community around that table with my family. Funny conversations and hard ones took place in that little kitchen in that little house where I grew up with one only one bathroom for five people. 

I grew up in one of the richest parts of Connecticut – Fairfield County. I didn’t know then, but I sure know now that our riches always displayed in the form of family time. While my dad got home from his first shift job at 4:00, my friends never saw their dads at night and definitely did not eat dinner with them as they traversed their way home from Manhattan on the MetroNorth. We met at the table for supper by 4:30 so that my mother could get to her second shift job at a local nursing home. Our table saved us from drifting away from each other.

Being connected once a day allowed us to share in our personal events, stories, and hopes. The table gatherings were not always peaceful. Things were aired out. Disputed. Challenged, to a certain degree. My father sat at the head of the table. We never crossed the line. I, as the only girl and in the middle, somehow stepped a little closer to the line to be heard and understood. Woman and girls in the 1960-70’s just had to say something a little louder to be heard. 

When my own children were in their school age years, their schedules were busy and tight. Yet, somehow, we gathered nearly every night to share a meal and each other’s company. Our table in Rhode Island, where my kids grew up, served the same multi-purpose space I remembered when I was a kid and teenager. From making meatballs together to working on tri-fold board projects to drawing a master list of potential colleges, the table was steadfast in its commitment to our family.  

The idea of carving out time in today’s lightning-fast family scheduling probably will make people chuckle. Really? Come on over to our house and carve out five minutes where everyone is in the same room, let alone share a meal at a table.

To this I say, even if not for a meal, at least for an evening cup of tea or a shared snack or building a puzzle. Something to gather the family to clink glasses and tip hats to the day just spent and to look forward with hope to the day and years ahead. The way forward and finding some sense of balance for today’s family begins in the simplest way. At the table. This I believe. Always have and always will.