Grandma's Chair

As my loyal readers are likely aware, I was quite close with my grandma. She and I were the best of pals and we spent an awful lot of time together. For the first seven years of my life, my family lived at my grandma's house and every day was a new adventure, even the rainy days. (And I can recall quite a few of those as a child.) I remember grandma giving my sisters and me black plastic bags to use as rain coats. We'd cut out holes for our arms and head and then run around in the rain. We didn't have video games and had this remarkable thing called, "imagination," which allowed us to play without technology for hours and hours outside.

Of course, it helped that Grandma's house was a magical place. It was so beautifully furnished as grandma took painstaking care to ensure that everything was dusted daily, a chore she did while listening to swing or gospel music on her stereo. There were a great many pieces of handcrafted furniture in her home and all had been carefully selected to go with the colors of her home (when I was growing up, she had yellow and brown wall paper...it was about as interesting as it sounds), but eventually the walls were painted green. I remember after grandma had the house painted when I was a young teen, I said something to her that made her just laugh and laugh. The kitchen had just been painted green and at the time I was anti-green for some silly teenage reason (now it is one of my favorites). I turned to my grandma after evaluating the situation and said, "Grandma, I can't cook in a green kitchen." She thought that was hilarious. She had such a wonderful sense of humor and the cutest laugh!

At the end of the day, grandma would settle down in her green lazy boy rocking chair. My sisters will quickly tell you that this was the second lazy-boy that she owned, but this chair, this is the only one that I recall. This is grandma's chair. When I would spend Friday nights, she would sit in that chair and we would watch Frazier while eating home cooked dinners together. When I wasn't feeling well as a small child, she would hold me in that chair and rock me to sleep. When I'd lay across her lap, cat like, she used to sketch out images on my back with her finger to see if I could determine the shape she drew.

Our cats, Pepsi and Amy, would compete for space on her lap in that chair. She would shake her fist, yelling and screaming at the Chargers in that chair (yes, grandma was an ENORMOUS Chargers fan. I can specifically remember her yelling at Rivers in her later years.) She would watch her one half hour of soaps in that chair and never once missed an episode of The Bold and the Beautiful. 

After she passed away, as we were preparing to sell my grandma's house, there was one piece I knew I would not let be donated: the chair. My folks thought it would take up too much space in our house, but by golly to me, that chair is grandma's love and as such, I could not let it go.

So we kept the chair. It has occupied many different rooms in the house of my parents and it has endured a bit more than your average wear and tear for a sitting spot. For starters, our old cats Pepsi and Amy fancied the chair as their high class scratching post as cats do.

There were dust stains and faded spots alongside the rips, but with some tender love and care, a spool of thread, two arched needles, canvas patches, and many ice packs for my back, (which now also needs some TLC), the chair is looking rather well.

Repairing the chair has been a nice meditative project for me. This January will mark ten years since my grandma passed. Memories and fabric fade, but there are some things that can be preserved if not for "forever", at the very least for a couple more weeks.

Hopefully that memory piece for you that you have buried underneath shoe boxes in the closet, or have stowed out in the garage will come to mind and you'll give it a little love and a little of your time. If there's a piece that's pulled at your heartstrings that you want to share, leave a line in the comments - perhaps you'll inspire others as well.

Craft on, dear readers, and we'll see you next week!

Your humble author,
S. Faxon