Our dining room was never just like a random room in the house. A simple square space with cream-painted walls stained by years of cooking smoke and hands, with a window that was never opened fully. Papa said it was to protect our food. I always wondered from whom. The ceiling fan always groaned from the weight of running for years.
That evening, the smell of palm oil and fried onions hung in the air. It was a normal evening where Mama was making dinner in the kitchen.
Only one chair stood out. As it nestled at the head of the table, empty yet made the room feel bigger than it was. Bigger, and emptier.
Papa used to sit there every dinner night. Same routine. Same energy. He would drag the chair back with a scrape that echoed across the tiles, still in his work clothes, and drop his car keys hard on the table. Then he would sigh like the day had personally offended him or even fought him.
“Who cooked today?” he would ask, loosening his shirt collar. "You, you." He would point to me and my sister playfully.
“Mama,” I would reply with a smile.
“Then I’m safe.” he would joke
Mama would walk out of the kitchen with bowls of steaming fufu and soup and would pretend not to appreciate what pains just said. “Just sit and eat.” she would say placing the food on the table
We never laughed loudly at dinner. Table manners mama had tagged it. Yet we were happy as a family. The kind of happiness that didn’t need noise.
Now the chair stayed pushed in every dinner night. Untouched and vacant.
The first week after Papa was gone, Mama would constantly lay out five plates every night. I would always watch her from the doorway as she arranged them carefully, like she always did. Rice steaming. Stew shining red under the bulb. Fried plantain stacked in a bowl.
Then she'd pause like she just remembered herself.
She'd rest her hands on the plate for a while before returning it back to the kitchen. Nobody dared to ask her why. We knew she was mourning although we feared she'd hurt herself.
These days we eat in silence. The fan groaned like it was mourning with us too. Spoons touched enamel plates, clicking and clacking. No one looked at the head of the table. The pain was something we couldn't bear or talk about.
Days passed. Weeks became months. The chair remained empty at dinner. Mama never allowed anyone to sit on it. And as always, no one said it out loud, even though we noticed how it held space. Yet on days we spoke, we made sure our conversations curved around it.
One evening, I summoned the courage and asked Mama to move the chair.
Mama looked up sharply at me, at my audacity.
“Move it where?”
“Anywhere. Just… not there. We can't deny that....." I paused trying to take my words carefully. "If no one is going to sit on it, then let's move it."
Her face hardened in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“It stays,” was all she said, even though I knew she had more to say.
“It’s just furniture.”
She placed her spoon down. Banged her fist on the table
“I said, it stays! And it is not just furniture.”
The words settled heavily between us. I didn't push anymore. I saw a side of her I've not seen before, so pushing would be a bad idea
That night, I lay awake thinking about how grief had made a wooden chair untouchable, stealing our joy at dinner. How something so ordinary had turned into a shrine we never agreed to build. Yet we somehow don't admit it.
As days passed, tension grew stronger. I knew it was because I had said something that night. Unsurprisingly, dinner became shorter. There was an elephant in the room that needed to be addressed.
Until one Sunday afternoon, Mama had made dinner just like every other day. It rained heavily that night. Dinner was boiled yam and pepper sauce. We'd gathered around the table to eat, watching as Mama carried the last bowl in, but instead of sitting at the right-hand side of the table, she paused.
Her eyes fell on the chair.
She shook her head and sighed. It was deep and tiring.
We watched as she reached for the chair that had become a deity. She pulled it back, its leg scraping the floor like it used to with Papa
We all froze. Mouths agape
Slowly, she sat down.
Nobody spoke. Nobody asked questions.
She rested her hands on the table, eyes shining but steady. Looking from me to my sister.
“He would not want us shrinking around the shadows,” she said quietly, like we had asked a question.
My sister shifted her gaze from Mama to me. She nodded
“It just feels strange.”
Mama nodded in agreement
“It.. does.”
Then she stood up and served herself some yam. Before serving us. We waited till she said a prayer and took a bite.
Then she looked at us and for the first time she smiled at dinner.
“Eat. We might have lost a Life, but life is still happening.”
Something loosened in my chest. I smiled and reached for her hand. I squeezed it softly. Then, I picked up my spoon. My sister reached for water. Gradually, mama began talking, small at first, then warmer, about work and her plans for Easter.
Although it would be a lie to say that grief left us that day. But I was sure it shifted shape.
Right from that night, the chair stopped being a monument at dinner. It became a chair again, not vacant but occupied, or simply put, shared.
[Source](https://pixabay.com/photos/dinner-table-home-table-setting-1433494/)
