We’re moving from Austin to Michigan. It’s kind of a long way. And because we need to empty our house for the renters (and because we need to have things to live with in our new home), we are taking all our stuff with us.

Generally I’m up for just about anything: but packing up our lives this time around has been more harrowing than I expected. Just more emotionally heightened than I had anticipated.

My brother Fritz flew down to help Nathan drive the truck up to Michigan. I’m staying until Monday to finish some “work” requirements with my exchange students. As a result, I am getting to pick put the pieces of the hurried early morning exit that left much last-minute cleaning and other maintenance in my charge. Though this is the plan I helped formulate (and so was not a victim in any way), I couldn’t help feeling a sense of abandonment as final preparations were being made to leave. I keenly felt what it would mean for me to be left behind. But that’s not really the point of this story – merely the context.

The night before they were to leave, Fritz was finishing packing things in the Uhaul trailer that I’ll drag behind the Saturn when I too venture north.

“Alright,” he said, “which of these do you want to leave behind?”

He had out several house chairs, the Muehlhausen high chair, and a large and awkward plastic lawn chair.

“I guess the lawn chair,” I said. “It was free.”

I said this with a sigh. Let me tell you something about this chair. It’s the kind that can recline, and it came with a cushion. It’s good for laying out in the sun (not that I have time to do that anymore), and it was free on craigslist. I was elated to find such a deal. Sure, it’s broken in one spot, and the plastic construction is not exactly beautiful or noteworthy. But ever since I was pregnant with Josie, my dream has been to sit on such a chair with my morning coffee and enjoy the morning air. This free chair was the answer to that dream, even if I only seldom used it. It came home with me over a year ago.

Of course, because I am terrible at general maintenance of things, I left the very nice cushion out in the rain for month after month. When it came time to pack up such things, Nathan asked what I wanted to do with the chair and its dirty cushion.

“I guess just get rid of it,” I sighed. “I mean, ideally I’d like it to be in good shape and to take it and use it in Michigan, but I know that it’s probably too far gone at this point, and it’s my fault for leaving it out in the rain, so we should probably just get rid of it.”

That afternoon, about a week ago, he spent at least half an hour if not longer with a hose, soap, and a scrub brush washing the cushion. Josie helped. I popped my head outside several times to assure him that he didn’t have to go to that trouble. He did it anyway. He dried the cushion in the sun, and it was cleaner than when I had first brought it home.

After that point I started feeling excited about the chair again. I started picturing the chair on our little porch at the Michigan house. I like to visualize things before they happen. It helps me feel more confident about the future, even if my mental image is only partially accurate or a vague guess at how things might go. So now that the cushion was beautifully clean, I periodically had mental pictures of sitting in that chair, drinking my coffee, writing in my journal. Perhaps I would look out at the neighboring field and see a deer. Perhaps Josie and I would have breakfast together there. I made a mental note that I should be sure to bring that cushion in out of the rain when not in use. I wondered which side of the porch would be best suited for that chair.

So when Fritz said that it wouldn’t fit, on the heels of a very emotionally strenuous day of packing our lives in boxes, my heart sank. I knew the reasonable answer: leave the chair. Leaving it costs us literally nothing. But my heart sank anyway. (The heart is not a rational creature.)

Without realizing it, that chair had come to represent my collective hopes for our new lives together in Michigan. It was a tangible symbol of comfort and familiarity in the midst of so much uncertainty. I went inside and cried weary tears.

After a minute of regaining composure, I went back outside. I was ready to give up that worthless plastic chair. That’s all it was!

Fritz had packed the remaining items, and only the chair remained.

“There’s just no way it will fit,” he said.

“Oh, it’ll fit,” said Nathan. I looked at him. He said something about finding another way. I went in the house for another task, and when I came back out, the chair was sitting on top of Nathan’s truck, upside down, and he was securing it for the long haul.

I don’t know exactly what I said, but I felt a relief that was totally disproportionate to the situation.

“You saved the chair!” I said when he was done. “I can’t believe you strapped it to your truck!”

“For you baby, I’d strap the world to my truck.”

It was quiet for a minute as he finished up some work on the truck and I stood in the garage, watching.

Exhausted himself, he sauntered over, pulled at his sweaty shirt, and smiled triumphantly. “It’s not really about the chair,” I said, feeling foolish. “It’s about what the chair represents.”

“I know.”

And he really DID know, and I could see it in his face. He saved my chair. For the life of me I don’t know why he knew he needed to.

It’s still not about the chair. But now there’s another layer. It’s the chair that fulfilled a dream, the chair that points to future hopes, and now it’s the chair that was rescued by my man for no other purpose than to please me.

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