Rock On!

 

My childhood rocking chair

Yesterday there was a bittersweet moment in my day.

I brought up my childhood rocking chair that my paternal grandmother (her name was Rose) gave me for Christmas when I was just 4 years old.  My sister Joy was 2 and she also got a rocking chair.   I loved this chair. I remember sitting in it until probably about age 8.  I kept my favorite stuffed animal on it (a panda).  Then high school and college, it stayed in my childhood home bedroom with a pillow shaped like a smiley face (it was a 1970s thing!). After my parents moved to a different village in central NYS, it went into their new attic....a large spacious room...where most of my childhood belongings ended up.

Fast forward to 1997 and my oldest (and at the time, only) daughter was 4 years old.  Mom and Dad had the chair re-finished it and gave it to Courtney for Christmas!  It "rocked on" in her room holding her American Girl doll until she was about 12...then it held some of her fave stuffed horses and then college happened and it was relegated to our basement in "her space". 

This past winter, Dave and I were actually starting to clean out and organize the basement.....what an accumulation of junk gets piled up in basements.  But among some of the junk that we were actually able to recycle at a tech plant ( old computers, microwave, cassette players, etc) there was my childhood rocking chair.  I said there was no way we were getting rid of that. I wanted it to stay on the M----side of the family. (my dad's side).  So I asked both  daughters if they wanted it for the future.  Neither one of them wants it.  Courtney had said if she was already married with a child then yes.  But she doesn't want it now and said don't bother keeping it. Claire's only reply was Nope. She isn't sentimental at all and has stated that she doesn't plan on having children (I said the same thing at her age!!)

I then reached out to my youngest sister Jill and neither her 17 or 12 year old daughters want it.  I didn't bother with my sister Joy as I knew she had hers for her son Luke if he decides to marry and have children.  And my sister Hope and her husband do not have children together.  So...

I reached out to my cousin Wendy!  She is the daughter of my dad's youngest brother.  My Uncle Cliff.  Oh what fond memories we have of running through Grandma M's garden in her Adirondack lake home.  We would climb up on Uncle Cliff's back and he would give us piggy back rides all over the yard, down to the lake, and back.  Wendy and I used to help  Grandma pick beans.  and she would let us eat them right off the vine!  

Wendy has  two daughters and one has a little toddler aged boy.  So we met yesterday, in a parking lot about half way between our homes, and Dave and I with our masks on and NOT hugging her or her husband, gave over the rocking chair. We stood socially distanced and chatted and reminisced a bit and then pretended to hug with promises of hopefully getting together over the summer. 

I am thrilled that my rocking chair will rock on for a new generation of children.  And that it is staying on Dad's side of the family.  

It's bittersweet moments like these that make me pause and say "Thank You, God, for family".