The Best Gift She Ever Gave Him

Alternate Title: Memories of a Couch


Kate with Chocolate Easter Bunnies, circa 1955, but...

...what I want you to notice in this photograph is not the fat-faced kid lovin' on a bunch of chocolate...I'd like to draw your attention to that couch in the background. Difficult, I know, since the Kid Who Loves Chocolate is so much the focus as the couch fades into near-oblivion, but picture this, if you will:

That couch was an indescribable rose color. There was a chair to match, but other than those two things, I don't think I've ever seen another piece of furniture quite that shade of pinkish-red. It had a rough texture; I remember that so well...

That was the couch on which I was forced to take my naps after a half-day of Kindergarten. (Such an insult to a Big Girl like me!)

That was the couch on which I was sitting one evening just before supper. My siblings were all on the floor in front of me, and we were watching "Poopdeck Paul" on tv while Dad helped Mom in the kitchen. I had one of those little pink plastic lipsticks on my pinky finger...You know -- the kind that used to come in little plastic purses with little plastic combs and little plastic mirrors? As I watched tv, I was mindlessly sucking the thing off my finger, then forcing it back on with my breath. But once I sucked a little too hard and it headed directly down my windpipe. My life flashed before me -- all seven or eight years of it. Everyone in the room was fixated on a stupid Popeye cartoon, completely unaware that their oldest sister was expiring behind them. All of a sudden, a miracle! The little pink tube popped right of my throat and onto the floor. I was alive! (And ashamed at the foolish thing I'd almost done. I laid my face against the rough surface of that couch and cried a little bit. No one ever knew.)

That was the couch on which we used to roughhouse, throwing ourselves over the padded arms and nearly breaking our necks by landing in awkward positions on the cushions.

That was the couch where I used to lie, shivering, when I would wake up in the middle of the night, afraid of my own bed. That couch was right outside Mom and Dad's bedroom door, and if I took my pillow downstairs with me, I could lie on that couch and fall safely asleep, listening to my parents breathe. (I never thought to bring a blanket, too.)

That was the couch where Mom gathered us all during storms in an attempt to get us as far away as possible from that big picture window on the front of our house. (Our Michigan basement with its dirt floor and God knows what kind of wildlife was never an option.)

And that the was the couch my dad and I were leaning against as we sat on the floor on September 23, 1957. I have no recollection of where my sisters were, but I know that my mom was still in the hospital, having just given birth that morning to my brother, Mark -- my first brother. In my heart, I can still see my dad's face as he said, "Yep, this is the best birthday present she's ever given me -- a son."

We still have that boy, of course -- He just celebrated his 52nd birthday! I don't remember ever getting rid of that couch, but somewhere along the road it went to wherever it is that good, faithful old couches go. I know that when the stuffing started to show through that rough pink fabric, Mom covered it with a stylish green slipcover with big swatches of gold on it. (The matching chair, too, of course.)

Somewhere there are other photos of our family gathered around that couch. And of course there are all those memories...

The other day -- Mark's and Dad's birthday -- I was remembering that couch as the background of a very special moment I'd shared with my dad.

Happy Birthday Dad and Mark...I love you guys!

Gratuitous Photo of My Dad and His Two Sons (That's Mark on the left), August 2007