Excerpt: The Tables That Changed My Life

I am in the full stride of writing now and today, I want to share another excerpt with you from the new book. This is fresher than the cup of coffee that I am currently sipping on, so I hope that you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The Tables That Changed My Life

When I was young, I spent a lot of time at my grandmother’s kitchen table.

Of course, that is where we ate meals. But it was more than a place to pass plates and clear dishes. My grandma’s table was where people gathered. It was where family came to visit and talk. It was where stories were told, days were unpacked, and coffee was poured like there was always enough time for one more cup.

Every evening, her neighbor Sharon would come over for coffee and a chat. To me, that felt as normal and dependable as the sun going down.

I spent hours at that table too — playing Rummikub, Rack-O, and Uno with my grandma, talking through the things I was feeling while my parents were getting divorced. And even when I was not part of every conversation, I was nearby, often in the next room, listening to the rise and fall of familiar voices and the comfort of shared laughter.

I do not think I realized it then, but those tables were teaching me something.
They were teaching me what closeness looked like.
What being known sounded like.
What it felt like when people made time for each other in ordinary ways.

Those conversations shaped me.
They helped form my idea of home, love, and connection.

And if I am honest, there is a little ache in realizing life does not look like that now.
I do not have a neighbor stopping by every evening for coffee. I do not have family gathered around my table every day, telling stories and lingering over conversation the way they used to.
Life has changed. The world has changed. People seem busier. More tired. More tucked away behind schedules and screens.

But that does not make those old table memories less meaningful.
If anything, it makes them more so.

They remind me that some of the most life-shaping moments do not happen in big, dramatic settings. They happen across a table. Over coffee. In the middle of ordinary days. In conversations that make you feel safe enough to exhale.

Maybe that is why tables still matter.
Not because the past can be recreated exactly as it was, but because the kind of love that lived there is still worth carrying forward.
Still worth offering.
Still worth making room for.

A table can still be a place where somebody feels welcomed.
Heard.
Less alone.

And maybe that is one of the quiet ways a life gets shaped — not only by the tables we once sat at, but by the ones we learn to gather around, and create, for others now.