I’ve never owned a comfortable couch. Nice looking? Maybe. Functional? Yes. But comfortable? Absolutely not. In New York we had a perfectly sized olive green sofa that was neither a love seat nor could comfortably fit 3 people across. If you laid down, you had to mind your head on its rock solid arms — their square edges abused and were made to bruise. After Mr. NYC we graduated to a perfect IKEA couch. It fit our old Victorian living room like a glove with a long chase end and faux leather perfect for cleaning my toddler’s spills. Shockingly we could fit 5 across when we watched horror movies in November (October is really just a warm up). She functioned beautifully, but comfort was never her role.
My mother, on the other hand, has never owned an uncomfortable couch in my life. Her most recent couch (purchased in the early 2000s) is a “pillow couch”. Let me explain: The base cushions are wide, two pieces and firm enough to be used as mattresses — glorious to sleep on. The back pillows are TWENTY-TWO overstuffed throw pillows. The three piece couch could only fit in the greatest of rooms as each arm is 15 inches wide and 3 feet deep. The forts that my kids build out of this couch can tower higher than any adult. It’s an opulent tuscan tan and brown design that most 60 year olds die for. My mom is 80; she’s ahead of her time.
We’re saying goodbye to this couch this weekend and shipping it off to my cousin (who loves a European look and turns 60 this year). It’s going to continue to serve her and her new grandchildren for years to come.
But saying goodbye to this couch is harder than any of the others that have come before it. Not because of its comfort, or because of my children’s forts, or because of its Italian vibe. It’s going to be difficult because it is the couch my father passed away on. Does that make my reader uncomfortable? Maybe. Am I going to apologize? No.
The morning my dad passed we moved him to the living room so that he could be surrounded by air and light — it’s truly the most beautiful room in the house. He was weak and broken, moderately incoherent by the hospice morphine. His passing was beautiful and awful. Before they took him, I sat on the edge of this couch and covered his feet and chest with kisses like an absolute weirdo. It was an out of body moment. I didn’t know who or if anyone was watching me and I didn’t care. Like a vampiress, I needed to draw him into me; to suck every last ounce of him into my being.
After moving to mom’s I found myself gravitating to this space on the couch — the place where his head was. In that space, I would have my morning quiet times, I would weep, I would stare out at the trees, I would find my deepest clarity, I would pray, I would shout at God, I would write, I fell in love with birds, I would fall asleep, I would stare at mom’s Christmas tree. This place has been my safe spot for the two years that I’ve lived in this home. It has been my safe spot through mom’s grief, through COVID, through teaching in a broken system, through so much yuck and now I am saying goodbye.
I have taken my lemons and I have squeezed them. I have taken the ball of fishing line and untangled it to weave something more beautiful. I am turning a corner and I have hope.
But there is grief and mourning about giving up this damn couch, this sacred spot. There is nothing about it that fits the aesthetic of me or Adam. It does not have a place in our next chapter. It needs to go, but I am so sad to say goodbye. I have never been so grateful for a simple spot.
