Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details.You can tell how close a family is by the length of the dinner table by J. G. Fabiano We were all sitting around the dining room table like most families do after any type of family gathering, from birthday parties to Thanksgiving. On this particular night my niece’s husband, whom I assume is my nephew-in-law, made a comment that stuck in my mind. Right before he sat down he said: "The table has never been this long." What he meant by this was that he had finally put all the leaves in the middle of the table to accommodate what has become a rather large extended family. As everyone around the table settled into discussions of their own I found myself drifting off on my own little sentimental journey, thinking about what the host had just said. One of my first memories of seeing the entire family gathered around the dining room table was when I was a young man getting ready to go to college. We had a summer party going on and the dining room table was laden with delicious and unhealthy food and all the chairs that could fit around it were occupied by aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces and a few other relatives I didn’t know and never saw again. By my third year of college I had left the dorms to live in my first apartment. It was a small studio in the middle of the worse part of the city but I didn’t care because this was where I would start my independent, adult life. By the tiny kitchen was an even tinier table and at my first meal there I was, basically, a family of one. I remember setting the table like my mother always did, with a knife and spoon on the right side of the plate and a lone fork on the other. My mother would have been proud of me because I even folded a paper napkin into a triangle. Then, on the upper right hand side of the plate, I put the only glass I had so that I had copied the only place setting I had ever known. I even put a single flower I’d found in the alley besides the building in a chipped blue vase the last occupant of the apartment had left behind. The only thing I didn’t have was something good to put on the plate. In fact, the only thing in my little refrigerator was a loaf of Wonder Bread that must have dated back to the 1950’s, a pack of American yellow cheese and a jar of Ragu sauce. I combined all three to create my own version of a vegetarian pizza, which would be my staple for the next two years of my life alone. Later that year I met the woman who was to become my partner in life. I was tired of eating alone so, a couple of times a week, I went to the local Howard Johnson’s Restaurant. The first time I went I noticed a beautiful counter girl with the biggest brown eyes I had ever seen. She wore the traditional blue and white Howard Johnson’s uniform and had her hair pulled back into a bun that was held in place by a net. I made a point of talking to her every time I went to the restaurant and got the first clue that she liked me because, whenever she saw me coming, she would take off the hair net that she hated. Somehow I found the courage to ask her out and we started dating. To this day I’ve never understood why, but she decided to take me on as a lifetime project and suddenly my table of one had become a table of two. The table was the same size through our first apartment together, but there were now two places set with the knife and spoon on the right side of the plate, a fork on the other and two folded napkins. And, the woman who had become my partner in life would always have flowers in the middle of the table and I was pretty sure she didn’t find them in some alley between some buildings. For the next few years we enjoyed our time together at that table for two. The nicest change was the food I ate. Ever since we became a team I had dropped the idea that a piece of white bread with melted cheese covered in Ragu sauce was a valid menu choice. I now had food that reminded me of the heavily laden table at my parent’s house with things that tasted good and were totally unhealthy other than the fact they were made with love. Then, all of a sudden, our two chairs were joined by a new chair, a high, colorful chair. Our baby daughter had her first real meal at that table. I remember the first time she was old enough to sit in that bright yellow and red chair with its shiny chrome fittings that held a gleaming white tray, pushed as close as possible to our little table so she would know she was an important member of our family of three. With the arrival of our daughter our little family was visited more often by my wife’s mother and father, my mother and father and pretty much anybody else who shared the same gene pool with us. Our first action, of course, was not only to trade in our little table but also trade in our little apartment for a house in the town I consider one of the most beautiful places on Earth. The house wasn’t new but it was ours and the table was large and made of wood and filled perpetually filled with friends and family that made me wish I had a table with more leaves in the middle. My wife and I spent many years of happiness in that house with our daughter, family and friends. Then something happened that my nephew-in-law has yet to experience. The size of the table began to get smaller. My daughter grew from an infant with crushed green peas perpetually on her face into a beautiful young woman who was a mirror image of her mother and went off into the big wide world. My wife tricked me because she did not grow older. She only grew more beautiful. I, on the other hand, grew wider and grayer. To this day I tell her I am her picture of Dorian Gray. So, our table is once again a table of two. The other day we were sitting at our table with the knife and spoon still on the right of the plate and the fork sitting by itself on the left. Our napkins are still folded in a perfect triangle with the only difference being they are now made of cloth instead of paper. As we enjoy our meals together I pray to God that I will never devolve back into being a family of one. I dread the thought that I might live so long as to remember my memories alone. Watching my nephew-in-law at our recent family gathering I found myself smiling at his comment about how the table has never been this long. I told him to enjoy it because it didn’t last forever, and I think he knew exactly what I was talking about. The End.
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