Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/. This week's word is Table.
This was the table at my parents' house yesterday. A spread of the foods that say holiday to us. The four of us gathered around the table and after one of my mother's beautiful prayers, we enjoyed a meal together. Me and my three favorite people on the planet.
This table probably wouldn't measure up on Pinterest. There was no fancy centerpiece made out of things you'd never imagined could be used for a centerpiece.There was nothing made with exotic ingredients. The cranberry sauce came straight from the can. But there was the most important thing around that table - love. Pure, unconditional love. The love that I haven't earned, the love I don't deserve. It was at that table that I felt truly, absolutely myself.
We sat around this table until we couldn't move from that table. Every serving piece went around the table twice. We wanted to take in as much of the spread as we could. To stay around that table to savor the moments together.
It doesn't go unappreciated that I am so very lucky to have been around that table with my parents. At 53, I am one of the few people I know that still have both my parents. As I attended a funeral for a friend's sister this week, I thanked God again and again for the chance to be a whole family for yet another holiday. To gather around this table in my childhood home. To feel that pure, unconditional love yet again. It was a day that will live in my memory.
Visiting from FMF. I am so glad that you are able to share the holiday with your family. This was my first Thanksgiving without my Mom and my second without my Dad. We were able to have my mom up last Thanksgiving and shared the holidays with her, my sister and my in-laws. This year it was just us and my sister and her husband. It just felt like another dinner...and I miss having my mom to bring my other siblings (a brother and sister) to the table (they are not close to me or my sister). I wrote my FMF about the dining room table I got from my parent's house, which is a little bit of that feeling of my childhood home that I can hold on to. I hope you can have many more holidays with your whole family around the table!
ReplyDeleteI think the table is absolutely beautiful! And sitting around the table (digesting) and chatting after such a wonderful meal is one of the best things on this earth.
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