Ode to a recliner

It might seem a bit odd, but when my parents asked me if there was something I wanted specifically as a graduation present when I completed my degree at SBU, I told them I wanted a recliner.

Josh and I were still newly weds, and we really didn't have much furniture in our tiny apartment. We had a small love seat and one of those rocker-glider chairs, both given to us by family. For some reason, I just really wanted a piece of furniture to call our own, and I wanted something nice and comfy for our living room.

And strangely enough, I have developed many sweet memories of that chair.

Like when we still lived in Bolivar and Josh would be gone to an "away" basketball game (he was an assistant coach with the Bolivar JV/Varsity Girls team since he student taught there), I would cuddle up with our new puppy in that chair and sometimes fall asleep before Josh would get home.

I sat in that chair and timed my contractions with Caleb for exactly an hour. I remember my stop watch sitting on the arm, and I remember grasping the sides when the pain got to be more than I anticipated.

We have pictures of each of our children as newborns being held by Josh in that chair. They always fell asleep on his chest as he rocked them or reclined with them. I also used that chair to comfort my babies at night time.

Or sometimes they just came up on my lap before bedtime and fell asleep.














Sarah and Gabriel were always nursed in the recliner. The arms were at just the right place where I could lay their little heads and then pull them up close to me. In fact, this is why I was bad at cradling them and nursing them, because at home I was so used to laying their heads on the arm of the chair, I didn't have to use my arms to hold them. The chair held them.

Quite a sappy post about just a chair!

But as the years have gone by, and as my children have grown, they have found many ways to use our recliner. And even though I am constantly telling them to stop, they are always managing to make the chair into a diving board, a playground slide, or a pirate ship (to walk the plank)! Ahh...the chair has seen better days.

And because of all the roughhousing, our sweet chair has now become broken beyond repair. The underneath has split, and part of the wooden frame actually fell off!

Previously I have written that I am not generally a sentimental person about lots of material things, but now I'm starting to wonder. Because even though I've been dying to get new furniture, and even though Josh said if the recliner broke we could get an entire new set (because that obviously is a sign that we should!) I just don't know if I can bring myself to get rid of this chair. It really feels like a part of the family.

I don't know what the future holds for my sweet chair. It's still sitting in our living room, unable to rock like it's supposed to. I just don't want to see it sitting out by our curb, waiting for the garbage man. I think I'd rather take it out to my parents' land and bury it.

Do they make head stones for that sort of thing?