Vow Renewal Vows for 25 Years (2 Minutes)

The vows

Nadira, the first month we were married, we paid forty dollars for a kitchen table at a church rummage sale. It wobbled. You said we'd use it until we could afford a real one.

Twenty-five years later, we're still eating at it.

That table has every one of our years pressed into it. There's a ring from the coffee pot you set down the morning we closed on the house. There's a pale spot on your side where the varnish wore off from twenty-five years of your elbows.

Perrin, Uma, you two are in it too. Perrin, you pressed so hard on your third-grade spelling homework that "Wednesday" is still written in the wood. Uma, that burn by the corner was your curling iron, and we all know it wasn't the cat.

Your mother never once suggested we sand it down. She keeps the marks.

Nadira, here's what I'm promising you now. I'll finally fix that wobble with a real shim and not a folded matchbook. I'll set your coffee down on the same ring every morning, so we don't start a new one. I'm going to keep dancing with you in the kitchen when the radio plays something from our first apartment, even though my knee has opinions about it.

When we get slow, I'll be slow next to you, and I won't complain.

I promise to keep holding your coat at the door while you look for your keys. You'll keep looking for your keys. I know.

Twenty-five years ago we bought a table we meant to replace. I'm glad we never did. Let's go put a few more marks on it.

Why it works: The table they meant to replace holds twenty-five years of marks, so the long marriage is told through things the guests can picture. Turning briefly to Perrin and Uma brings the grown kids in through their own marks, and the curling iron gets a laugh. The ending asks for more marks, which turns the old table into the promise.