For this blog, I will be discussing the history of my mom’s table that she has in Ecuador. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the table, so I will provide a picture of the house my mom built in Ecuador for herself along with a picture of a similarish wooden table that I found on Google. 

   Old Wooden Table from Google (1)  

                        Early days of my mom’s house

The table is roughly 4 feet long and 3 feet wide, and has a height of about 3 feet. I don’t know what kind of wood was used to make it, but it is a dark color similar to that of the face of the drawer in the picture. Instead of drawers like the table in the picture has, the top of the table that my mom has opens up (like a car hood) to reveal a hollow interior. The table is currently hidden in a room located in the back left corner of the house and is used solely as adornment. 

The table is important to my mom because it used to belong to her grandmother. To explain why this table is important to my mom, it is important to tell her story. My mother was born out of wedlock, and was then adopted and raised by her grandparents as their tenth child. When my great-grandmother passed away on September 13 of 2011, the many properties that my great-grandparents owned were passed down to their nine heirs, of which the majority voted against my mom being included in the inheritance. One of these properties was the house in a town called Giron and is the “main” house that the family would spend most of their time in and is also where my mom was raised. Almost immediately after the funeral, my mom was (aggressively) told to remove her stuff from the house in Giron because “she was not an heir”. 

Within hours of being kicked out my mom had a moving truck loaded up with all of her stuff from the house of Giron. Among these items were her childhood bed, her old clothes and books, some personal items, and most importantly an old wooden table. According to my mom, this table was the dining room table used in that house for decades (~50 years). In addition, when my mom brought the table, she also brought the stacks of fancy plates that were stored inside of the table. In the thirteen years since the death of my great-grandmother, the majority of the heirs still have no clue where this table is. I’m not condoning stealing, but I laugh every time I see the table because it shows me where I got my pettiness from. To my mom, this table represents her childhood memories and the struggles she had and still has to overcome as a result of her origin. Sometimes she’ll take out the plates and remember her old life, and sometimes she’ll even use the plates if we have a special guest over. When I see it however, I see a remnant of the family split. 

If you read my previous blog, you’ll remember that I mentioned that my great-grandfather raised cattle. Unlike the other girls in the bunch, my mom tagged along with my great-grandfather whenever he was working outside, did business, rode horses, went grocery shopping, and got drunk (she didn’t drink, she just protected him). As a result, the town gave my mom the nickname “el rabo de Don Segundo” or “Mr. Segundo’s tail” and my great-grandfather was extremely protective of my mom. Unfortunately, he died on July 4th, 1985, which was three or four months after my mom entered the U.S. with my brother. Given that my mom was being raised with her aunts and uncles, that meant that she was not raised with any of her real siblings from either her mom or dad’s side. Because of this weird family position that my mom is in, there has always been an “us vs them” mentality when dealing with 95% of my family. When I was very little, my cousins and I were playmates, but as we’ve grown up we’ve adopted this cold mentality and these unspoken alliances. In other words, when my great-grandmother died, so did the family’s law and order. 

I find it interesting that of all the things that my great grandparents owned, the material inheritance that my mom chose to bring with her into her “new” life is the same object that saw my great-grandparents, the heirs, and my mom sit down and eat together as a family. 

Works Cited

1. Restorers, Van Dyke’s. “How to Restore a Wooden Table.” How to Restore a Wooden Table | Van Dyke’s Restorers, http://www.vandykes.com/blog/decorative-wood-blogs/how-to-restore-a-wooden-table/b/how-to-restore-a-wooden-table/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2024.