Fun times around Tables!
This photo is of Godson D'Vante sitting at the table opening those great birthday gifts! Of course a photo had to be taken as he opened his card from The Godmother ~ I am told he shook it and shook it checking to see if any $$$ fell out! haha
ah but I was clever this year, I had hidden the gift card in a shirt! Sure wish I had put duct tape on him when he was little, he has grown up much too quickly!!!
Many great memories are also left at those wonderful tables through the years, memories that will sustain and remind us of years past when we need to recall them on days that we are needing a boost! Perhaps these blogs will help trigger your own memories that way.
I can see from the comments that others are recalling some of the good/great times of yesteryear; times of great gatherings around their own tables; when friends came to call and gathered... times when food was shared, bread broken together and grace said. When hands were held, heads were bowed and blessing-ways were shared.
The stories many; their content varied. While its true that "family secrets" were painful, grief plentiful, krumpled kleeenex generic and branded were often left laying; there were also times of amazing grace and tremendous laughter while people sat around those great ole' tables and others stood nearby just wishing for a place to pull up a chair.
Just yesterday a woman that I met in Kansas reminded me that Rachel Ray and others have kitchen tables on their talk shows! Now I wonder if the thoughts and memories of their own experiences led to those decisions... after all, great conversations always lead to sitting around those tables! It seems that they are always standing on their shows aren't they? Perhaps they are waiting for someone to show up and have a seat at the table and start a conversation? Who knows, I just find it an interesting thought that they have a kitchen table there, waiting for others to pull up a chair!
So today, wherever you are and whatever you are doing... take a minute and remember your best thought of gathering around the table; at home, in a restaurant, overhearing a conversation... it just might bring a smile to your face.
I had heard of a family who were in a restaurant and they had bowed their heads to pray. The little one had led the prayer and in doing so was overheard by those around,
"Dear God, thank you for my family and for the food we are about to eat, and when I finish God I hope you give us a chocolate sundae, Amen". His prayer was overheard by a crabby woman who remarked, "What an awful prayer for a child to pray asking God for a chocolate sundae, I have never..." Later on a gentleman came by seeing the little one visibly upset and reassured him that was the best prayer he had heard in a long time, not to worry what others had said, and maybe that woman just never knew how to pray and ask for things! So when the little one's sundae did arrive he was delighted but rather than eat it, he got up, took his sundae and went to the crabby woman and said, "Here lady, I brought this to you cos' I think God would want you to have my chocolate sundae today, and maybe then you would understand why it's good to pray", smiled a smile that would light up the world and turned around and returned to his seat! His Mom was grinning from ear to ear and asked if he would like her to buy him a sundae, and he replied, "Nah, I'm good Mom!"
And to think... it all happened around a table; a memory and a message for the ages!
Walk In Beauty
author of Healing Heartaches, Stories of Loss & Life
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6 comments:
Oh, how I loved the story of the young man in the restaurant and the sunday !!!!!
That made my day............. really.
Great blog this a.m., Dr. SES
Keep it up.. IRM
Must say I loved the story in the restaurant because I feel we should pray more often as "children of God/Universe" and pray like little kids!
Like most of these blogs, there is some sort of question amongst the words, sort of like an assignment of sorts. This blog asks us to remember a good memory around a table.
This may be one of he toughest questions yet.
As hard as I try, I have absolutely no good memories around tables. I suppose that is why this blog is interwoven with secrets and stages of grief.
I was told of a website where we could post secrets...but will share a few here just in case someone else reading this is also having difficulty conjuring up a "good memory."
I remember my mother cooking Christmas dinner, but is was never served because my father never came home from the bar and she went to bed. It was left on the stove.
Kitchen Tables cause me to mourn for my life thus far...which bring me back to the stages...which brings me to acceptance because there really is not too much you can do if you have never had a birthday cake or ever blown out candles.
AND I am not writing this to whine. I am writing this in case anyone else reading is also experiencing tremendous difficulty remembering any good times around any table.
So, we can go out and try to at least observe others around tables like the boy in the restaurant. We can invite people to our tables. We can keep on trying the best that we can.
NOW YOU ARE GETTIN IT!!! BRAVO TO THE anonymous reader above this post... it is in the grieving, in the telling of the secrets, the feelings behind them that is doing the work of healing the heartaches, that is in freeing the spirit to fly, to enjoy a table, a meal with a friend... to enjoy a table and to create meaningful memories that stand on their own, with their own beauty with their own stories with their own precious meaning without the noise of what wasn't and what was once so very hard....
Next birthday or tomorrow unbirthday, buy you a cake, put some candles on it and have your own celebration of being a survivor of being alive and being freed of pains and tables that once were but are no longer....
Celebrate YOU....
Learn to laugh, love, dance in the rain, and above all else, find what you can eat, do enjoy and go for it!!! Tables can be and often are a hub of goodness and grace... Start today!
Be the good and loving parent that you didn't have. Be tender with yourself. Create the life you want to lead. Fill it with good times, good people, kind deeds for others and kindness' that you show yourself. Shame on a father for ruining his children's holidays by drinking at the bar, shame on the mother who did not celebrate with her children in spite of the father, but children can't make parents be wise or loving, or mindful. Do now for the little hurt child that resides deep inside of you. Love yourself well and make magic in your life. Today can be better than when you were helpless and young and defenseless. Talk about "healing heartaches". Be well.
Shaking birthday and Christmas cards around the table and Christmas tree. What memories that brings to mind. I remember one niece saying how old do you have to be to sit at the big table? She was told when you grow up and there is a empty chair come on in or just scoot someone over and sit down. The other kids would fill their plate full and journey out on the back porch at the picnic table or if there was a ballgame on just grab a tv. tray and sit in the living room. Dishes would be piled high on the counter top, no paper plates for all of that delicious food prepared by beautiful hands. All joined in to do the dishes, pity the poor person who got the last of the dishes, that would be pots and pans. It was a wonderful family time with lots of laughter and lots of fond memories. Get those families together for a good time eating, laughing and sometimes crying at the Kitchen Table. Dont wait too late
THank you to the person who posted at 8:04...yes we can "love ourselves well." and we must "love ourselves through grief."
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