Our Attachments to the Things That Belonged to Them

Today we put our couch to the curb to make way for a beloved piano. Our apartment is small. We’ve lived in it for over fifteen years so wall space is hard to come by. Letting go of the couch was my immediate thought when we were trying to decide if we could take the piano or not. We only had a couple weeks to decide.

Easy peasey. Couch out. Piano in.

It's an old couch. It was once white with pink and teal slashes of color, an overstuffed beast. I remember when my grandparents first got it. It was when I was in my early teens and it was like sitting on a cloud.

When my grandpa died in 2004, a few years after my grandma had passed, my brother and I carried the couch and matching loveseat out the sliding glass doors and into his van. They came home with me.

Over the years the couch has sagged. The cats attempted to tunnel through it. I sewed patches of fleece on it as it dried out and frayed so that they couldn’t. It’s pink and teal slashes paled. It has been so hard to get off of since my accident, and so low to the ground, that I didn’t use it anymore.

Today we put it to the curb.

For a moment, for just a moment, I felt like I was putting my grandparents to the curb.

I just wanted to note that. Of course I did. I didn’t let it stop me from doing what needed to be done. I let myself cry as our friends dragged it to the curb. Just for a moment. The sudden emptiness in the living room reflected the emptiness I still feel in my heart for them. And I always will.