She Asked For the Kitchen Table

The movers are coming. They will pack up her bedroom, bridal shower gifts, some hand-me-down furniture, as well as any keepsakes. They will also pack up our kitchen table.

Our daughter, Kaitlyn, is getting married and moving to another state in a few weeks. When I prayed for her future, I never entertained these years would be lived apart from us. In that way her wedding is bittersweet. We love Eric and what they have begun building. But being a former military family we know that returning to your hometown doesn’t always happen. New horizons forge new paths, and now they will build their own hometown.

Something Familiar

I believe in times of transition it’s pretty natural to want to feel something familiar. We gravitate to what feels safe, known, and unmovable. Maybe that’s why she asked if she could have our kitchen table — considering we still use it. Kaity said it was where the life of our family happened and she wanted to take it with her.

The other night we ate our last meal at the table. We reminisced, we laughed, we even got a little teary. I leaned back in my chair and took it all in. I don’t recall ever feeling like I did parenting very well. I only remember more doubt than confidence. But in that moment, knowing our kitchen table was what she wanted to take with her, I knew something went right.

Where Life Happens 

Laughter and tears, shouts and jeers were exchanged around that table. We had hard conversations and awkward introductions, big announcements and birthday celebrations. We took communion as a family and believed for better tomorrows. We prayed together, talked about relationships, sex and many other embarrassing topics, as well as some of life’s hardest lessons.

In those chairs we celebrated beating cancer, right alongside a perfect spelling test, as well as memorable milestones like drivers licenses and first date debriefs. I homeschooled our kids at that table and had more homework fights than I like to admit. Our kitchen table has seen, heard, and been a part of it all.

A Sacred Place 

Kaitlyn described it as a sacred place, a holy place, and I can’t really say I disagree. It’s where all of our lives were lived and shared in togetherness. Those four chairs, and well-worn table, represents our family’s love. Where we willingly pushed through the hard moments so we could appreciate the good ones.

As a former military family we have lived in many houses, but as far back as she can remember that table has been the constant in our home.

Her Heritage

Now Kaity’s budding family will make the stories around that brown wooden table. Even though I won’t get to witness it as often as I had thought, I feel like a little bit of us travels with her.

Maybe she will know how to love deeper because of the love that was shared around that table. Perhaps she will know how to fight and disagree better because of the intense moments lived out in those four chairs. And maybe, just maybe, she will hear the echo of our family’s laughter as she laughs with hers. I wonder, will she still sit in her chair? Or will she try mine?

Final Thoughts 

Before it’s loaded up by another moving company, and headed to a new military home, we all took a moment to inscribe a memory and a blessings underneath the table. Life happens, my friend,  between the cracks of honesty, confrontation, acceptance and unconditional love. And in our home, more often than not, those moments happen around that kitchen table.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me friend,

PS.. Where does your family do life? Share in the comments a memory of life happening with your family.

AND

Join me on Monday in Remade’s closed Community Group on Facebook at 12 PST. I will chat a little more about how moving day went, and what God revealed to me in the middle of loading that furniture.