Faithful

Our living room couch is the biggest piece of furniture we own. It can fit all four of us—husband, wife, two kids—with room to spare for maybe even two more folks. It’s also probably the oldest piece that we have. Inheriting it eight years ago from my Uncle B and Aunt C when we moved from my in-laws’ house to one we rented on our own, that chunky thing easily became one of the comfort zones in our then new home.

It had always served like a great anchor in the big old house where I grew up. We lived with our grandparents for a long time and my earliest photos had been taken while I was sitting on the same sofa with my cousins and uncles and aunts. There i one picture that’s a real keeper: I was dressed to the nines—sporting a Candy Candy shirt and wearing a red fisherman’s cap and striped, knee-high socks. That photo was just the beginning of a long list of memorable snapshots on that couch.

When we were in grade school, my sister and I had a lot of fun messing around in our living room. And quite literally, we really messed things up. On hot summer days, we pushed that humongous thing to the center of the room and started working on our imaginations. Most of the time, its cushions became the walls or the roofs or the stairs for our playhouse. But the sofa was so versatile it became everything we’d like it to be: a trampoline when we acted like those crazy monkeys in the zoo, a tall mountain which we wearily scaled, a bathtub where we made up our own bath soap ad jingle.

It’s big, it’s warm, it’s comforting. The couch’s qualities are what you’d want for your favorite stuffed animal, your comforter, or your bed. My ex-husband preferred to catch his early zzz’s there before lumbering to bed after midnight. And on days when my kids were sick, they’d rather spend it on the couch than on their beds.

When we had it reupholstered about a year ago, the workmen handed me, among other things, an ancient comb and my daughter’s rubber teether—tiny memories that disappeared for years within its folds and crannies, only to be discovered and remembered again.

And so I wonder: How many more stories will it tell? What other secret dreams and treasures will it keep? How many of my grandkids will it continue to comfort? If my kids wouldn’t have the heart to throw it away, I am certain there will be more.

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Pictured: A greeting card