Sentimental Attachment to Things......

Just before Mel left to WA we had a conversation about what he had wanted of his dad's things and the two items that he had been looking for with fondness were his dad's pocket knife and his razor. He had come up with those items when he was visiting when his dad first got sick over a year ago, they had sentimental value to him and personal memories for Mel himself of his father using these objects everyday. Unfortunately, the razor, his dad's original gold plated safety razor he'd had since 1953, had gotten knocked into the trash during his first illness and thrown out by accident. The knife though my mel had found in his dad's tool shed in a box. When we came home from this last visit it was in his luggage. When my grandmother died I selected her Currier and Ives dishes and my granddad's old Fox 12 gauge shotgun. I had such fond memories of the dishes that I'd always wanted them. The gun was a thought for me to have something I knew no one else in my mom's family would want or use. Its not a fancy gun but he used it all of the time hunting when my mom was little for squirrels etc. It was probably bought in the 50s from Sears. At the time my mom thought I was off my gourd but my step dad packed the dishes up with some linens from my grandma's closet into an old hardsided suitcase and got a case for the gun. The linens I still use since my grandmother embroidered them and there was an ugly afghan in them that I used for years for camping and then put in Benton's room when he arrived and only found out that my mom had crocheted one thing in her life and it was that afghan which she gave her mom and never saw again. Odd coincindental items that have a lot of memories for me.

This rambling is going somewhere....when my parents divorced my mom and I moved into a tiny 1 bedroom, 1 illegal basement bedroom duplex. due to the size constraints and my grand piano, the couch and furniture got moved to my basement bedroom and I had a full apartment to myself except for a kitchen for almost all of high school. That couch had a lot of memories. Its been with me since 1992 and my parents bought it new in 1983 or so? I recovered from chickenpox on it in 1984. I sat on it when I almost tore my leg off and was stitched up in 1986. I think I'd kissed almost everyone of my boyfriends on it. I'd watched Forever Knight first broadcasts while seated on it. I did homework, listened to music, slept away on it for years. It spent a few months in storage in ND in the Lucas wharehouse. Was put in storage on the farm in Hudson, SD and then got moved to Tucson where it lived in 3 places I called home. My first pictures of Butterfly and Obsidian are on that couch. I have photos of friends in town for our wedding sitting on that couch in 2003. I was sitting on that couch when my mom called at 230am in June 2006 to tell us that my stepdad had passed away. I breastfed Benton for the first time at home on that couch. I have photos of Grandpa Mel and Grandma Ellen holding Benton on that couch. I have pictures of my mom holding Benton on that couch. Almost any item I'm knit or crocheted has been seen on that couch.

Its just so odd to think that I'm sentimental about a couch but with us getting a new to us one on Monday night I had this rush of thoughts and feelings about it and now feel sad to see it go even though its very, very worn out...31 years is a long time for a couch to live.