Gram's Chair

When my grandfather died exactly two weeks shy of turning 100, I drove down to Clearwater, Florida to take care of his belongings. My grandmother had died years earlier, and most of their furniture, books, and clothing were in storage. Funny how we didn’t distribute their things years before when Gramp went into the nursing home, as if there was always the chance that his aging might reverse itself like some tumor that miraculously shrinks.

Most of their stuff I gave to charity. They collected a lifetime of objects, and yet I found little of anything that I wanted. Except, that is, my grandmother’s rocking chair.

My grandfather always sat in a sizeable, comfortable recliner that enveloped me as a child. A tall, significant man, he filled the seat and commanded the room. My grandmother, however, sat in a petite rocking chair with wooden arms and a narrow frame. Strangely, I don’t know what happened to his recliner. Perhaps, it was in his nursing room at the end. Her chair rests in my living room.

Both of them were born near the turn of the century; he, a few years before, and she, a few years after. He was a principal, and she was a teacher. They prized scholarship, good conversation, travel, and decorum. They taught me to hone my thoughts and my expression.

When I sit in her chair, I imagine her small frame gently rocking, a diminutive figure who left a prodigious imprint. Each of us stands on the shoulders of those who held and continue to hold us up. My grandparents’ arms bore me the highest, and the view I now see I owe much to them.