The Dining Room Table’s Love Letter to the Dining Room

Dear Dining Room,

They were whispering over me last night. We provide catalogues, prices, and delivery windows. “A modern set,” they said. Cushioned chairs. Hidden leaf. Wipe-clean finish. They stroked my board like someone patting a pet before driving it out to the farm.

You’ve heard this sort of talk before—big changes that arrive wearing excellent shoes. We’ve kept a family together on ordinary evenings and milestone days for twenty-two years. You and I know their elbows by weight and their tempers by the way glasses land. So let me speak while they’re asleep and the house has the peaceful dark: Don’t let them trade us for a stranger with showroom manners.

You remember my build. A trestle runs dead centre, solid as winter. It’s the place they hook their heels when the stories run long. Four legs as thick as small trees, each with two grooves down the front, like the path of marble leaves in sand. Twice as long as I am wide, a perfect rectangle. Twelve sit easily with the leaves, ten down the sides, one at either end, and not a wobble if everyone keeps their knees to themselves.

The finish is honest. Heat rings white as chalk where casseroles landed hotter than sense. Watermarks from iced tea glasses set down mid-argument. Knife kisses around the spot where the oldest learned you don’t cut bread directly on wood unless you’re ready to live with it. The wax is thinner at the places where their hands always rest—the father at the head, the mother on the corner nearest the kitchen doorway. That’s not damage. That’s a map.

They tell themselves a new table would be practical. I heard the word three times fast, as if repetition makes truth. The pizza cutter rattling across my boards every Friday; the two eldest are back with partners, laughter piling up like plates. Geometry homework is practical, but it feels like one wrong fraction carved too deeply, with a glue-gun string spidering across my finished project during Christmas craft time. You, dear room, are catching the 10 a.m. sun, which creates a warm rectangle of light across my lap, where the cat used to nap with the arrogance of royalty. Put that in a catalogue.

You and I have a ledger of memory. Let me record a few lines before someone wipes the page clean.

Year Three: Spaghetti night. The pot was too hot, so I put it down too quickly. A perfect ring seared into me—panic, towels, ice. The toddler stuck a spoon in the middle of the white circle and said, “Halo.” Everyone laughed in the ruin. The mother kept the ring for a week before she learned the trick with mayonnaise and patience. It faded to a ghost and stayed. They call it the first scar.

Year Nine: The situation escalated beyond control. Knuckles rapped; the uncle fell backward and took a chair with him. I felt the jolt through my joints. The dent is small but sharp; you can find it under the second place from the left, where the middle child always sits. He rubs it with his thumb when he’s thinking.

Year Fourteen: Break-up tea. There was no pizza and no music. There are just two hands flat, a head bowed, and the slow tide of crying that soaks right through to the boards. The father came in, said nothing, put the kettle back on, and sat. They sat a long time without needing to talk. I held them steady while the world wobbled.

Year Eighteen: graduation caps tossed, then gathered and stacked on my desk like a shrine. The celebration slices have grease stains on them. A corner of the diploma pressed into wax by an overexcited hug. The spring sun hit the top right, and the youngest said, “This is what golden hour means.” I didn't disagree.

Year Twenty-Two: The cat’s last nap. All bones, all purr, stretched in his rectangle of light. He woke, yawned, and turned three slow circles before settling. They wrapped him in the blanket that lives on your blue chair. I can still feel the weight of that goodbye.

There are more—birthdays, communions, arguments about politics that rattled the salt, and arm-wrestling that made the candles lean. Every ring scratch and dent is evidence: a life happened here. We were furniture; we became witnesses.

Now: the threat. They described it as a shining hardwood. Soft chairs. Stain-resistant. If posed correctly, the subject would photograph better than we do. It might even smell of nothing, which some people call clean. Here’s what it won’t do: it won’t know to brace extra when the youngest laughs and slaps the board with a palm. It won’t keep quiet secrets because it hasn’t earned them yet. Yes, its leaf will glide smoothly and its high gloss will wink, but it won't bear the weight of elbows without protest. New is a look. Steady is a fact.

I’m not pretending I’m flawless. One leaf sticks if you don’t set it straight. I hum at the slightest imbalance—I’ve learned to sing you messages down my trestle when a leg needs tightening. There’s a soft spot where the sap bled long ago; if you press on it, I yield slightly, similar to how a human admits they were wrong. I am soft hardwood—Norwegian grain with a memory for dents. Isn’t it beneficial? That line always makes them roll their eyes. I make my peace with groans.

But swap us? Start over? Teach a stranger the angle of light at four, the creak in the south board, and the exact push needed to make the centre leaf behave. You, my dear room, would have to break in a newcomer’s voice. You’d miss the pitch of my own. I think you know it.

This is not begging. It’s evidence. Let me add to it.

Last Friday, they brought home a loaner—“just to try.” Lighter wood. The chairs wore tidy slipcovers like polite smiles. The delivery boys parked it where I sit and stood back. The family tried a game. The first dice roll sent a whisper through the entire set. Every move was a tiny shiver—wood disagreeing with its assignment. The mother kept smoothing the tablecloth as if a cloth could teach manners. The youngest drummed fingers to test the bounce and frowned. “Sounds empty,” he said, and he was right. Years carry no weight. No answers are stored in the joints.

They ate pizza anyway. Grease beaded on the plates, and for the first time in a long time, the diners ate without placing anything down on me. I watched from the wall—humiliating, if you want it to be. I chose to study. The borrower made a hollow noise when they laughed. He blinks under the chandelier like a person who doesn’t know the joke but is desperate to be included.

When the game ended and the plates were cleared, the father stood, patted the loaner, and said, “Nice.” He looked at me, then at the ring located second from the left, and finally at the dent that everyone rubs absentmindedly. He ran a hand over my finish and came away with a faint wax shine on his palm. “Real nice,” he said, but he was speaking to me.

The decision didn’t arrive all at once; choices rarely do. The conversation unfolded in pieces: the oldest pointed out that the loaner’s chairs squeaked when shifted; the mother admitted she didn’t want to embrace change with Thanksgiving approaching; and the youngest, blunt as ever, stated, “I don’t want to eat at a table that doesn’t know me.” On Monday, the borrower was gone. By Tuesday, the father had pulled me a foot into the middle of you and lined up sanding blocks like a surgeon laying out tools.

They worked together—the whole family. The oldest came early with coffee. The partners brought dust masks and a playlist. The mother taped your baseboards and cracked the window so the room could breathe. Someone queued the song "Times of Your Life" by Paul Anka. Yes, it’s on the nose. Sometimes noses are correct.

Sanding is honest labour. You experience the impact of every choice you have ever made about a surface. They moved with the grain, their arms burning and jokes thinning, but then the humour picked up again as the boards freshened under their hands.

The white heat rings transformed into pale clouds, then into suggestions, and finally returned to their original form: narratives that don't require a loud voice to be authentic. The dent remained in the second position. They left it on purpose. You can’t erase the game without also erasing the players.

They wiped me down with a sticky cloth that removed more dirt than I expected. When the nutty oil was poured into a soft rag and pressed against my skin, it felt like a blessing. I drank it. You could smell earth and patience. The grain stood up proudly and said, "Here I am." They leaned close; I could feel breath on my neck. The cat isn't here to test the 10 a.m. rectangle anymore, but the sun found me and laid itself down, satisfied.

They tightened my bolts. They replaced two screws. The youngest climbed underneath with a socket wrench and whispered, “Stay.” I hadn’t planned to go.

When the oil cured, they sat down. No tablecloth. No slipcovers. Bare wood and hands. Someone said grace; someone else said, “We don’t do mercy,” and everyone laughed because yes, we do, in our own plain way. His father lifted a glass and gently touched it to where the ring had once been. His sound was right. Not hollow. Not perfect. True.

I am not the newest thing in this house. I intend to be the most reliable. I will carry their plates and support them through whatever years they are fortunate to spend here. When the older children return on Fridays, I will collect their keys and listen to their complaints. When the younger sibling leaves, returns, and departs again, I will bear the burden of suitcase conversations and that unsteady first cup of coffee. When someone needs a quiet place to rest both hands, I will not move. When they fight, I will ensure that the knives are dull and cannot harm me. When they glue, I will accept both strings and sparkles. When they sing, I will hum the bassline in my throat.

Dear Dining Room, we're not a fad. We are the frame. If the family must say goodbye, they should do it with the same care that they used to sand, oil, and name the things they loved. Until then, continue to catch the light at ten. I will keep holding it at the centre.

Coda—First Holiday After the Oil

They put the leaves in before noon and let me breathe. You opened your curtains wide and took in the weak sun like a gracious host. The eldest arrived with a runner folded over one arm—linen, slate-blue, stitched a little crooked, where you can tell someone’s hands did the work. I softened my boards while still keeping them visible. They set the excellent plates. The ones with the hairline cracks that everyone pretends not to see went to the far end, where forgiveness sits.

The partners came with pies. The new baby came with a yawn. Someone taped a tablet to a trivet so the ones who couldn’t make it could watch from a kitchen two time zones away. They told the baby to “say hi to the table.” He smacked me with an open palm and laughed like a hinge that’s never squeaked.

The gravy boat, ambitious as always, put a small crescent where it shouldn't. The mother dabbed at it and then stopped, thumb pressing once, as if to say, "We still live here." The hat mark will fade into a memory and eventually become a story about the year when the rolls burned, but nobody cared.

They expressed gratitude for their health and the new furnace that is no longer an airplane. The father lifted his glass and didn't make a speech. I just touched the rim of the old ghost ring and let the chime be enough. After dessert, the youngest slid underneath with a pencil and wrote the date on my trestle—small, shy, exactly where a hand rests when you’re thinking. A partner added a tiny star. The oldest, practical to the end, tightened one bolt half a turn and said, “There.”

Later, when the house went quiet and the tablet blinked itself to sleep, you and I listened to the slow click of cooling pans. It holds scent longer than people think; I could still smell nutmeg, and they kept forgetting to replace it. The baby’s cup left a damp circle that dried to nothing. The new runner maintained a wrinkle in the fabric beneath the heavy platter. Keep it. That’s proof.

Dear Dining Room, this is how you keep a thing: not by leaving it untouched, but by touching it again with care. Keep catching the light at ten. I’ll keep the centre steady.

— the table, who knows them, and isn’t done.