The White Coffee Table

Here you guys go. I am open to anything you guys say about my writing.

The White Coffee Table
By: Dana Stevens
My Grandmother Joyce was in a nursing home for several years. She had been sick and she had been tired for years of that nursing home. She was willing to leave the nursing home and she wanted to go back to her apartment in the Bronx Projects called Webster Houses. Her children persuaded her not to go back because her apartment because it was in a turmoil by now. For an old lady the projects was not a good place to live in, Grandma Joyce was now 66 years old. Ever since she left her apartment when she was 62 years of age. The apartment had become rusty and old and it turning to a lonely and broken abandonment. The apartment was aging like she was herself. When it was time to clear out the apartment. My Mother and my aunts and uncles had explained that they experienced a reminiscence. They experienced a flashback. They had grown up in that apartment for forty years. And my whole family knew of that place. That place wasn't a good environment but it was the only place that we knew of until we left the projects.
My Mother felt that her mental state of things and of the world had changed since Grandma Joyce had left to go be in care at the nursing home. She said that in the projects there were many neighbors and drunkards that were about them.
It was not a safe place for anyone to live in. Many of my Grandmothers stuff were old and they were her Mother's things, and they were her Grandmother's things too. Joyce’s Mother had passed back in 2007 at the age of 77. Her grandmother passed away forty two years before 2007. There were old photographs of all of her past family members from the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and many more decades after that. My Mother and her siblings kept those old photographs and portraits, and they gave them to Grandma Joyce back at the nursing home to keep like old treasures. My Grandmother was enthralled when she received those photographs. She put on her bureau and every time I visit her I see the portraits on her bureau, I look at it for inspiration of African-American History, and my Gift of storytelling, and the portraits were sort of like Shintoism. Like the Japanese who honor their ancestors I honor my ancestors to whom were in labor and they arrived to get to where they needed to be, and to have a wonderful life. And when they were gone thy knew they left a legacy and achievement and there descents would recognize that about them, and they would have a greater future for themselves. When My Mother and her siblings were done clearing out the apartment. The apartment was empty and it was like everything that was in there had vanished into thin air all of a sudden. It made my Aunt Tracy, and My Uncle Morgan cry. That was their childhood, it was there strive, it was a place where they knew that they had to live better than what they already lived in. The projects brought them to struggle and made them continue with what they needed to fulfill. There tears dried out. They walked out of the house with some of the furniture leaving a legacy that was far, far away from them. Some furniture of my Grandmothers they threw in the garbage that was out in front. Some furniture was way to cherishing to throw out so they kept them. When they were done with clearing out the apartment.
My Mother came home with my Cousin Hilbert. We lived in an apartment too North of the Bronx. She and Hilbert came up with a white Coffee table that was pretty with brown edges from my Grandmother’s apartment. They put the coffee table down on the living room floor, we didn't have a coffee table. And for some reason it fit the theme of my Living Room. My Mother backed up and she got a good imagery of the white Coffee table. She said to me “This Coffee table is my Father’s Mother’s table. A lot people grew up and were fond of this table. This table was brought in from the 1940s’.
All I could say was “Wow. What a history!’. It's crazy how something so plain and something that people don't really pay attention to could be so cherishing and so great, and wonderful and fond to family or friends. That White Coffee Table is like a replete monument that had been with us for so long, and My Mother kept it in a safe place. In the love of a living room for family and friends to laugh around and to put down drinks and food, for many more generations to know of a history, a being's history that had been a wild, struggling, and fascinating one.

Reviews

[West Lake Angel]

I like the historic plot and the amazement that comes from finding treasure in something so simple. Nice job!

[Dana Stevens]

Thank you so much. Great review of my work!