This brings me back, far back into my childhood. Sitting with my grandmother in the family homestead kitchen, my small hands running over the rough wood of the large table in the center of the room, I can hear her still crooning to me in her soft Irish cadence. I can still hear the crickets outside the window, with the howls of coyotes in the distance, and the smell of linseed oil from the table mixed with a large pot simmering with the chicken carcasses that were from dinner. I wouldn’t know then, but the most important words of wisdom that I would live my life by, would still be told to me then. My small hands struggled, splitting peas, and dropping them into three bowls.
“Make sure the bowls are even, Eire.” Grandmother would say, chastising me if I neglected to make them even.
“Why though?” For what child can resist asking that question that teaches us.
“Because, tomorrow we are bringing them down the road to the neighbour.” Her voice was firm, telling me there was no arguing about it. “We have a good crop, and the neighbours are new, and have no garden.”
If this had been told to me as a teenager, I would have brushed it off with the thought that if they had not planted a garden, then they did not deserve a harvest. Thankfully, I was young, and easy to be taught the way the world could potentially be.
“Why?”
"Because when you are lucky enough to have more, build longer tables, not higher fences.” My grandmothers words of wisdom now echo strong and true, so many years later. We worked into the night, my small hands working beside my grandmother`s weathered ones, as we both sat at the table. It was long past the time when my parents said time for bed, that my grandmother tucked me in. In the kitchen were three bowls filled with peas, strawberries and gooseberries. One bowl for us to eat, one for storing for the future months, and one for the neighbours down the road.
I did not go with my Grandmother to the neighbours the next day, but as I played in the pond, catching frogs with my brothers (and trying not to get pushed in by a cousin), I did think about what Grandmother meant. Why, when we are prosperous, do we insist on building higher fences? What did that mean?
That answer did not come to me until many years later, when my husband and I were struggling. I was very, very ill, and we were faced with a decision that would alter our lives for the rest of time. While our table was meager, and we made the decision of having a roof over our heads instead of the medication I desperately needed, I heard the saying one more time. This was from a guardian angel, and it helped us with the medication that I needed badly to allow myself and our unborn child to survive. Build longer tables, not higher fences. Our guardian angel was more prosperous then we were, and instead of buying for themselves, or increasing their own comfort with material things, they decided to welcome us into their fortune and built a longer table.
Now, as I near my 30th year, and have become more prosperous, I remember the times when I could not even afford to buy milk. How much it helped me, and my family, to have someone make room for us at our table. Thankfully I am in a position where (and mindfully try to) grow our table. It may not be actually having extra bodies at my table, or a spare bed filled. It is as simple as putting together a bushel of vegetables or fruit, or baking an extra loaf of bread, and sharing it with those around us. As long as NEEDS are met, we can do without our wants. For when we take care of others, we take care of our own souls, and teach the younger generation that it is not all about me me me, it is about humanity as a whole. So I encourage you to sit back, and take a moment of thought. Who can you make space for at your table?