The
Dad/Mom Chair
I
love this chair. So why am I letting it
leave me? Because, it’s not actually the
chair that I love. I love the day – the
whole wonderful day that I shopped, with my dad, for this chair, on behalf of
my mom. I call it the Dad/Mom chair.
In
late May of 1996, my dad had hip replacement surgery. He decided to go to a doctor in Utah, since
that was where he ultimately wanted to be.
He and mom had recently moved from a lovely home in Anaheim Hills, CA to
a home that Dad had been working on in Provo, UT. Mom and Dad were both from Utah, and both had
graduated from the University of Utah.
When time and opportunity arose, they took themselves and their 5
(eventually 6) children and moved to southern California. They lived there for about 36 years, give or
take a few. After the kids were grown
and gone, my folks decided to return to the land of their roots. Dad bought a fixer-upper on Iroquois St. in
Provo, and was in the process of turning it into a home, when he discovered he
needed a hip replacement.
Dad
was almost 70 at that time, and his surgery was tough on him. He needed a lot of care, and my mom was there
for him. She was constantly at his side,
doing whatever he needed her to do. She
was his sweetheart, his care-giver, his confidant, his muse, his voice of
reason, his companion, his competitor and his sounding board. She correctly anticipated his needs and
wants, and moved to meet them. He loved
cocoa and toast, so she made homemade bread.
He loved innovation and change, so she provided a stable platform from
which he could spring. He wanted the
best. She was.
When
they moved into the house on Iroquois St., they brought no furniture
initially. They had a bed where he could
rest, but very little else. Their plan
was to return to southern California after his recovery and then move their
belongings.
On
a beautiful, bright June morning, the sun was streaming in the east
window. Dad said, “Randy, I know you’d
like to get some coverings for these windows, and that you have other errands
you’ve put off… Why don’t you just go ahead and go this morning. I’ll be fine.” She’d been taking care of him for two
straight weeks without a break. She knew
they’d sleep better if the windows were covered. She was anxious to do exactly as he had
suggested, but she was concerned for his well-being. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” “Yes, he replied, “I’ll be just fine. Just leave a beverage by the bed and you go
do your errands.” He smiled. She smiled.
“Okay,” she said gently. Leaning
closer, she kissed him. “I love you,”
she whispered. “And oh how I love you,
dear,” he answered. She turned to go,
looked back and lightly smiled, “I won’t be long.”
Mom
never returned from her errands that day.
She was making a left-hand turn at an intersection at the top of a hill
and was hit by an on-coming car. We
think that the accident was probably Mom’s fault – she was making a left hand
turn when her light turned red. She was
turning onto what we think was one street too soon, according to her errand
list. She may have realized her mistake
and stopped mid-turn, not seeing the change in the signal. The light probably turned red for her and green
for on-coming traffic. She may not have
known what hit her.
Someone
called 9-1-1. My sister-in-law, Laurel,
was a police dispatcher, and her office got the call. Fortunately, there was an ambulance only a
block away. The EMTs scooped up Mom and
rushed her to a nearby hospital. She had
a severe brain injury. She was in a coma. Her prognosis was grim.
My
life stopped as soon as I got the phone call from my brother, Jim (Laurel’s
husband). I drove immediately from
southern California to Provo, UT. I
stayed as long as I could, then returned to work and drove up every weekend. One of my brothers, Dave, and his family were
in Provo visiting from Bangkok, Thailand.
My sister, Cindy, came often and stayed long. My brothers, Rob and Spence, had young
families and heavy work responsibilities, yet they came as often as they could. We all wanted to be near Mom. We all wanted her to heal. We all wanted her to open her big, soft brown
eyes and give us a reassuring smile. We
were all there when the doctor us not to hope anymore. We were all heartbroken. We all still hoped.
Finally,
the doctor made it clear that she would not recover. But, he would allow her to go home. We were grateful for that opportunity, and
wanted everything to be comfortable for her.
Dad was in control of the situation, despite his painful and prolonged
recovery. “Lorrie,” he said to me,
“Randy will need a soft, comfortable chair to sit in during the day. She may even want to sleep in it. I want you to go with me to find the right
chair.” It seemed as if he thought she
might wake up, and wanted her to be comfortable.
I
loved these kinds of excursions with my dad.
I saw the objective as simply an excuse to be together. I readily agreed to be his sidekick for the
day. I wanted Mom to be comfortable too
– even though I wasn’t sure that she’d notice.
Dad
wanted to find the right chair in a furniture store in the Salt Lake
Valley. We headed north on I-15 in his
pickup truck. I asked why he wanted to
go to Salt Lake, since there were perfectly good furniture stores in
Provo. As he talked about the superior
products in stores to the north, he began to reminisce about his youth and
childhood. Dad and his brother, Pierce,
used to own Brady Home Furnishings in Salt Lake City. That brought forward a flood of memories.
As
we looked for furniture stores, we passed houses that his father had
built. “That’s the one where it got so
cold that the cement froze.” And,
“That’s the one where I didn’t have a coat and my dad went and bought me a
brand new one. It was the first new
thing I’d ever had in my life. My mother
was hopping mad because he spent the grocery money on my new coat. But my dad knew that she’d work things out,
and she did.” In another section of the
city he was reminded, “That’s the house where my brother, Ralph, would pick up
the empty wheelbarrow by the handles and spin it around to be re-filled, rather
than walking it up the ramp. Ralph was
strong. Sometimes he scared me to
death.” And later, “That’s where they
used to hold the old Union dances.
Everybody knew that the Union girls were the prettiest of all. Most of them were my cousins. Of course, we knew that we had to protect
them from the other guys, so there was usually a fight or two at those dances. One night some foolish boy picked a fight
with Ralph. He was sure sorry. Ralph made short work of him, then turned to
the crowd that had gathered and announced, ‘Anybody else want to fight? I’ve got a little brother who can lick all of
you!’ I was never so scared in all my
life,” Dad chuckled.
We
drove past the big white house that his dad had built on speculation, and the
first basement house he had lived in as a child. The one where his mom would build a fire in
the yard around a big, black, cast iron cauldron so she could do the laundry
for her immense family. “That’s where
Ralph chased me past the fire and a clinker bounced into my shoe. A perfectly round, hot clinker. And it burned into my foot! I’ve still got the scar!”
Dad
talked fondly of his mother – her piercing blue eyes, her easy laughter, her
beautiful smile. He talked respectfully
of his father - his penchant for work,
his love of baseball, his pride in his family.
My
dad’s young life was laid open for me that day.
I saw him as I’d never seen him before – as an obedient, purposeful,
hard-working, hard-playing young man with aspirations and fears, expectations
and disappointments, gentleness and iron-clad willfulness. I loved him before, but that day I loved him
even more.
We
found the chair. It was perfect. We both sat in it, reclined in it, and
pronounced it good. Dad paid for it and
helped load it into his truck, despite the pain in his hip. We stopped to eat a burrito, and then headed
south to Provo.
Mom
passed away a few days later. She never
sat in the chair that we had combed the Valley to find. Nevertheless, it was her chair. He bought it for
her. He sought her comfort even to the
end.
Mom’s
been gone 18 years this August. The
chair has traveled from Provo to St. George to Yorba Linda, CA to Plano,
TX. It’s old and well-worn. I used it every day for a month after I hurt
my leg in an accident. It would have
served Mom well. But, things like chairs
can lose their value and even their purpose.
It’s not nearly as comfortable now as it was when Dad took it home. Its pinkish-maroonish color has faded, the
velour is stained, and the massage unit works intermittently. It still rocks back and forth, but not as
smoothly as it once did.
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