It was just a couch, but it brought back a flood of memories.
"My mom had a couch like that," my friend Mindy said. She continued on to tell a story, but all I could think about was how similar the couch was to The Couch.
The Couch my mom had always wanted.
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When you grow up in a trailer park where the rent is $75 per month, the furniture tends to be the sort of furniture that others might consider worthless. In our case, the living room furniture paid homage to the 70's. Our couch bore an orange and brown pattern that told a story with it's scenic rural print. There was a barn and a farmhouse surrounded by trees, a wagon-wheel fence, and fields of wheat.
It was hideous.
But, it was the only couch we had. It had gone from living a stylish life in the early 70's in my grandparents house, to living a slightly outdated life in their basement, to living a completely tacky life in my childhood home. My mom surely realized just how hideous it was, but she was protective of the things that were expensive to replace. I can't tell you the number of times I was told to get my ass off of the arm of the couch. "Get off of there before you break that arm!" she would scold.
Can you break the arm of a couch? I'm not sure. I never managed to do it, but once I was old enough to appreciate the value of a piece of furniture, I stopped risking it. Ask Alexis what happens to little girls who climb on the arms of couches in our house now, 30 years after my mom first started yelling at me for doing the same.
It's so fun when you hear your own mother in your head as you fuss at your kid.
My mom protected that couch for well over fifteen years. She cleaned it and vacuumed it and did everything she could to keep the velvet fabric from wearing out. By the time I graduated from high school, however, her efforts were starting to be in vain.
It was so worn out. So very worn out.
And yet she continued to care for it. It wasn't until she was given the all-clear after a radical mastectomy that she started to plan for its demise. It was then that she made up her mind that she would get new living room furniture no matter what. She wanted a matching set, and she decided to move mountains to make it happen.
She started stashing pennies to save for new living room furniture. She picked up aluminum cans on the side of the road and turned them in for cash. She scrounged. She sold things. She saved. Eventually she pulled together enough cash to put a couch, loveseat, and chair on layaway at the local furniture store.
From there it took her another year to make the payments required to take the furniture home. The ugly orange and brown couch went to its final resting place at the landfill, and it was replaced with something new.
And equally ugly.
I have no idea what she saw in The Couch. It was horrific. We went from paying homage to the 70's to paying homage to the 80's with a pink, slate blue, and gray southwestern style geometric pattern.
The cancer returned and eventually murdered my mom in 1995, just over a month after The Couch went home.
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My dad remarried not long after my mom passed away. That's another story for another time, but my thoughts on it were born in an explosion of emotion related to The Couch.
I returned to North Dakota for my dad's wedding. It was a mistake for me to be there, but I didn't know that until I walked into my childhood home. I stood in the middle of the living room where my mother died and asked, "What happened to The Couch?"
"That ugly thing? I should have burned it, but I threw it away instead," my new stepmother said.
I loved that stupid couch.