Furniture

   There is a picture somewhere of me as a toddler. In this picture, I am standing and holding on to the end of a coffee table at the same time, presumably so that I don't land on my butt. I, however, am not the important part of the picture. The coffee table is.

The coffee table, in its new home. Thanks, Bry!

   It is the coffee table I grew up with and it is older than I am. Not only did I grow up with it but it followed me around. I took it with me when I moved away from home the first time and it graced the tiny, cockroach-infested bachelor apartment I had in northwest London. Eventually, I got married and it followed me and my ex-wife around from apartments to houses.
   It was a very unassuming coffee table and, therefore, was never really a centerpiece of any living room. For many years it held a place in our rec room. After my wife and I split up, eventually my oldest son, Bryant, moved out and the table now followed him. Currently, they reside together.
   A couple of years ago, somehow or other I ended up having a discussion with my Dad about this table. I discovered then that he had actually made the table in shop class in high school. I think he was amazed that it was still around!
   This meant that the table was built circa 1940 and I'm sure it likely had some interesting travels prior to my Dad getting married and settling down. Due to its age, I laughingly used to refer to it as the coffee table I was conceived on. I still do, actually, now that I think about it....
   So a hand-made coffee table that is likely 70 years old and has withstood the test of time, lived through many moves, been owned by many different family members and weathered countless spills and tumbles still resides in the same family and likely will continue to do so for another generation or two. This is what I love about furniture.
   My Dad had an antique desk sitting in the bedroom of his apartment for as long as I can remember him living there. I always thought it was kind of cool as old-looking things interest me. I had always taken it for granted until Dad passed away and we were forced to go digging through all the cracks and crevices of his life.
   This desk had several small drawers in it and I pulled one of them open only to find a stash of letters Dad had written to his mum back in 1945 when he was in the Navy and stationed in Halifax. It was like a little treasure trove of stuff I suspect Dad had likely forgotten about.
   Dad's sister, Leslie, came from out west for the memorial service and it wasn't until then that we found out more of the history of the desk. She said it was the same desk she and Dad sat at to do their schoolwork when they were kids. Likely the desk dates back to the thirties. Presently, it sits in what hopefully will be my office someday and was front and center at Dad's memorial service. It is strange to sit there and imagine him in the same spot 75 years ago, doing homework!


Grandparents and ship's clock on the mantle. Thanks, Carol!

Dad's old desk and the same ship's clock

   There is another old photo, this one dating from 1957, of my Granny and Granddad sitting in the living room of the family cottage in Gibsons, B.C. They are sitting in front of the fireplace and on the mantle is an old ship's clock. I am not sure on the history of the clock, I believe it was salvaged from some steamship somewhere. The clock has found its way to a variety of places my Dad has lived and it always seemed to be as close to a family heirloom as he ever talked about. Because it seemed important to him, it has since become important to me as well and now sits about ten feet away from the antique desk.
   There was really no way to keep all of Dad's furniture when it became necessary to clear out his apartment. Family members came in and chose items they needed or felt attached to. Faced with much stuff left over, we found ourselves opening up Dad's place to other people we knew. Doralyn and I both work for the Alice Saddy Association and provide support to people with developmental challenges. We set up a day when people from our Association could come and pick up items they needed. In this way, much of the apartment got cleaned out. What this means is that some of Dad's belongings have left the family, finally, and I may still run into them from time to time in my work travels. It is the dissipation and continuation of his life, right in front of me.
   A couple of years ago, I was at my sister Jayne's home in Parry Sound. We were barbecuing on the deck and they brought out a card table to put plates and condiments on. There was something very familiar about the card table. I asked my brother-in-law, Mike, about it and he said it had come from Dad's place. He suggested I look underneath. I did so and discovered my parents' address on it from when we lived in Edmonton. This would have been back in the late fifties and I have no idea how long before that the card table might have been in the family. But I do distinctly remember playing with it as a child, intrigued by the way the legs folded underneath. So it had travelled likely from Calgary to Youngstown, Ohio to Edmonton, on to Vancouver and then to London. Presumably, it then followed Jean and Dad to places like Kitchener, Woodstock, Vancouver, Calgary (again), Halfmoon Bay in B.C. and then back to London before ending up in Parry Sound.
   I was delighted to find it! It confirmed a reality of my past that otherwise I might have filed away as possibly only a figment of a foggy and suspect memory.
   This is part of what furniture does. Its longevity carries with it the possibility of connecting people with their pasts and the histories of their loved ones and relatives. Sometimes you can almost feel the ghosts hanging around old pieces of furniture, all the little bits of energy people have left behind. The dings, nicks and scratches tell their own stories, describing the interaction of people and things.
   It is difficult to look around at the furniture we have now and try to imagine what lies in its future. It's not that old and not yet totally immersed in history. It's hard to say whether the coffee table I'm looking at now will one day grace the living room of one of our sons or still be with us thirty years from now, as our lives transition. The nature of history, though, is that it just takes time.