This is the table around which everything happens in our home. It has always been a tradition in our family that everyone sit together around the table at dinner time. That is just family time for all. When our family started to grow we quickly outgrew our table. Deahl enlisted the help of my brother (who passed away a few years ago) to help with building a table. We bought an old door from an old church and they refinished it. They used porch posts for the legs to make a very special table for me. I was blessed with a church pew off of free cycle and we had a table for 12. Now the cool thing about this table is that when my brother helped to build it he was blind. It was amazing to watch as he would run his hands over it to feel the textures and say no we need to work on it more right here.
The church pew we got on free cycle my boys worked on stripping, sanding and restraining. So that makes it more special. The other bench my best friends husband (David Strange) build for me so it would slide under the table and out of the way when not in use. He passed away last year. But what makes this table the most special is the time we have spent at it. The homework that has been done around it. The sentences that have been wrote at it, the school projects, crafts, cookie making, family games played, family meetings, model cars, fingernails painted, adoption papers filled out at this table.
Thats not all though, if you look at the underside of the table there are signatures of every child that has ever lived in our home. Over 50 signatures fill the space. The tradition is that the first night the child is in our home they sign there name to our family table. If you look closely several signatures you will see more that once. These are the kids that left our home only to eventually find there way back.
I urge others to find a very special family tradition in your family. Traditions give these kids a firm base to make them feel very special.
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