The Rocker

 

Not the guy, my rocker, but the chair.

He'd just finished putting stucco around the fireplace enclosure and was admiring a job well done. I know this was not long before the wedding because we took a few "formal" photos standing in front of it.

Somehow, memory was telling me that he bought me the rocking chair for our first anniversary. Nope. He didn't even wait that long. 

At some point, I must have said "I like rocking chairs". It was weird. I asked myself "What kind of guy buys his woman a rocking chair?" Took me a few years to find out that all I had to do was think out loud and my silly wishes came true.

Then the chair started trying to kill me just by sitting there minding its business.  

A week did not go by that I did not whack one or the other ankle bones on the front rockers. It's not like the place was crammed with furniture. I couldn't seem to get my foot radar tuned to this chair.

Four years later I was sleeping in it half the time because Colin didn't get the hang of sleeping through the night until he was one. 

Then it became a repository for clean laundry until I cleared it off for Jake who was a more considerate child when it came to sleeping, bless him. He hauled himself upright on the side rungs, grabbed onto our old cat Moses and off they went walking sideways down the hallway.

So lots of use, a house heated by a wood stove and the rocker began to fall apart. I know we glued it back together more than once. The memory of bruised ankles outweighs the memory of what eventually became of it, sad to say.