The Kitchen Table

There is such magic in a kitchen table. I have often thought if mine could talk how much it would reveal. It collects such things as tears, coffee, spilled milk, smeared jelly, goodbye kisses and school books. If the top of it became transparent, it would reveal grocery lists, notes to and from the children, poetry, and scores of secret daydreams and fantasies quickly written and thrown away.

If my kitchen table had feelings, it too would reveal a warmth in tousled-haired little boy smiles in the morning, hurt for the teenaged daughter problems, and would wrap its arms around my friend who feels she is growing old. Sometimes, I wonder if it cringes when harsh words are spoken over it and feels the pain of not being able to take them back.

The square of wood in my kitchen holds many memories, as well as reams of paper n which I reflect the woes of wife and motherhood; the love, life and laughter of a once six-placement family that, somehow, too quickly, dwindled to two.