It Was Time

Field Note #317

I sold GiGi’s dining room table yesterday.

The one I used to sit under and play Barbies on Saturday mornings when I was six. The one I sat at when I was homeschooled in middle school. The very table that has held countless Easter baskets and Valentine’s gifts and birthday and holiday celebrations for my own kids.

I convinced myself it was the most practical thing to do. Nora needs a room of her own. We didn’t need the china cabinet or the buffet, and the table had become my own personal junk drawer.

I got it all cleared off and ready to go. I told them we’d have to take the legs off to get it out the door, but they were insistent it would fit, so I helped them carry it as far as we could.

It didn’t fit.

We had to set it down.

“Get out of my way,” I said through my teeth. I made it down the hall, locked myself in the bedroom, fell across the bed into a pillow, and broke.

I didn’t even give the lady my information to send me the money.

Mason handled it. He understood, without a single word, that I was breaking, and he stepped in to be unbroken for me.

I’ve spent years teaching him — reminding, correcting, wondering if any of it was sticking. In a moment so raw, there was no fuss, no hesitation, no complaint. Just a quiet, steady competence.

The table is gone. But in its place, I saw her one more time.

I’m still grieving my grandmother, and I’m still wrestling with the guilt of letting it go, but I’m also filled with an overwhelming, bittersweet pride.

When it was over, he gently knocked on my door.

“She’s gone.”