The chair

[widowat33]

Bear with me, this may be long..

When his grandfather passed away my husband inherited his reclining chair. This chair was older than us and was a gift from the community to his grandpa when he moved 40 years ago. The years were not kind to this chair, his grandmas cats even less kind to this chair and then when we got it the springs started pulling out of it. So we decided to have it fixed up and recovered.

We live in a small community and so we took it to a place an hour drive away to get it fixed. They called us when it was time to pick out the fabric we wanted for it. My husband worked on a two week rotation so I waited until he was home to go pick out the fabric.

We made the trip with plans to drive another hour after picking out the fabric to another city to put a down payment on his new truck he had ordered.

At the shop there were so many choices for fabric, beautiful patterns and colours...my husband picked a hunter green, plain hunter green. He must've sensed my distaste in the fabric and once we got to the car we got into a huge fight. Him accusing me of doubting his choice asking why I didn't just go pick it out myself. Me reminding him it was his chair it should be his choice. It seems like such a silly thing to fight over, but most of the fights we had were over silly things! I didn't speak to him for hours after that..not during the rest of our trip to the car dealership, not during lunch. It wasn't until our trip home that we started talking again and about why we were upset with each other. That was our last fight, about three months before he died. And although it could be a memory that hurts, it isn't. It reminds me that no matter what we communicated so well with each other and never let things simmer under the surface. In fact we were always so proud of how well we resolved conflict and never let things go unresolved. The story doesn't end here though...

My husband was working away when I got the call that the chair was ready. So I told him he would have to pick it up with his truck when he came home, but I asked my sister to borrow her truck to go get it. I wanted to surprise him so much with this chair! I told him that I stopped into the shop and paid the bill and it was waiting there for him to get. He asked how it looked, I told him it looked good and that I was wrong, it was a nice colour and material and would look awesome in our living room, meanwhile it was already sitting in our living room!

The boys were excited for him to see his chair, in fact my youngest wanted to be sitting in it when he got home from work. But he never came home. He died in an accident on his way home. He never got to see the chair. I like to believe that he's around I know this is not everyone's belief, but it like to believe that he's seen it and is smiling about how good it looks, thinking "see I was right" because he did like to be right,lol.

I'm not sure why I am writing about this, maybe because I am facing the task of going through his things and deciding what to keep.

The chair is staying!

[canadiangirl]

Beautifully written, widowat33. 

[SoVerySad]

I'm sorry your husband didn't get to see the chair in your presence. I share your belief that he does see it from where he is now. I hope you and your boys will feel comfort sitting in his chair.