When Bill and I met many, many moons ago he had a favorite chair. It was a big grey leather recliner that took up half of his then studio apartment. Rumor had it he spent a lot of time in that recliner and he and his chair became very attached.

It moved with us through two apartments in NYC and then came along when we moved to suburbia. By that point (over 20 years ago), it was already showing its age. But there was a spot for the chair, nonetheless, in our basement in front of what became a super old television box.

From there it became the chair that young kids jumped in and grew to be the chair where Passover items collected. (So that’s where all the green plastic frogs went!).

But alas, this past weekend it was time to clean the basement. A full college dorm room and soon a one-bedroom apartment from Ann Arbor will be inhabiting our basement space for a while. Sadly, there just is not enough space for the chair.

I have to say it was a bit traumatic for Bill. Cleaning off the chair was like a stroll down memory lane. Turns out the leather on the seat must have ripped years ago but we were surprised to see that it had been neatly stitched. We are convinced that a favorite babysitter took on that project although we did not know it at the time.

Feeling sympathy, I offered to also put my rocking chair to the curb. That chair had been sitting right next to the recliner in the basement for years. It was the chair that had been in both children’s rooms right next to the crib. It was the chair in which we rocked them to sleep as newborns and toddlers. It was the chair in which my daughter and I would “talk about it”, whatever “it” was to solve the problem of the day. (While I distinctly remember trying that approach with my son, he looked at me as if I had two heads). Clearly, my husband is much nicer than I am. No need to discard the rocker he said. There is enough room to keep it.

I prefer to think of this exercise as clearing the room to build new memories.

PS: The tee shirt was definitely not planned, just pleasantly coincidental.