Mama’s Table

My mother cleaned rooms at a motel outside Knoxville for almost eighteen years.

She kept a little notebook in her apron with room numbers, broken lamps, extra towels, and names of guests who were kind to her. She came home with sore feet and still made cornbread like she had all the time in the world.

On Sundays, everyone ended up at her table. Cousins, neighbors, somebody from church, sometimes people I did not even know. She always made room.

She never thought of herself as part of history. But families like ours were built by women like her, one shift and one meal at a time.