Rock-a-bye Baby

Kevin was born just a couple of months before David got out of the Air Force. We were living in a furnished apartment at the time. Some people had, a few months earlier, given us a bed. The couple had a king-size bed in their bedroom, but, in their guest room, there was a double bed. They’d recently taken a vacation and visited relatives, who also had a double bed in their guest room. The couple found that bed absolutely too small and uncomfortable. When they got back home, they went and purchased a queen-size bed for their guest room. At church choir rehearsal one evening, the husband told people that they had this bed they were giving away, and did anyone want it. David immediately said, “Yes, we could use a bed.” It wasn’t a new bed, but it was a bed that had hardly been slept in, and we were accustomed to sleeping on a double bed, anyway.

I think we took the bed frame from the bed we had and the new bed’s frame, and leaned them against the wall in our bedroom. And then we stacked the box springs from the bed in our apartment and the hand-me-down bed, and then put the two mattresses on top of that. It was a wobbly few months. When Kevin was born, he slept in a car bed sort of thing we had purchased. Another church friend had given us a used crib, but we didn’t have space to set it up. It was in pieces in a storage space in under some stairs. The only other furniture items we owned were a couple of stools.

On David’s last day in the Air Force, packers were scheduled to come and put all our belongings into boxes to ship to Waco. It took much less time than usual for them, as they typically pack up whole houses of furniture and all the household stuff. We had household stuff, like kitchen stuff and a couple of sets of dishes. When we first moved in, we’d bought a set of plastic dishes, and those movers wrapped every single piece of that stuff, individually, in paper. They were very careful packers.

We did have a broom, and the packers carried it around for a while, not having a good place to pack it. “We’ll figure it out,” they said. Then they labeled all the boxes, checked them off, gave me a list to check, and I signed the form, and they carried all those cartons down the stairs and into their truck.

David came home from work a little while later, walked into the apartment, took off his uniform and put on civilian clothes, and went downstairs to the trash cans, and threw away that uniform. Then we picked up the suitcases and the baby (and the baby stuff) and went to the airport and flew away home.

We lived with my family for a few weeks. We rented an apartment, but had to stay with them until our stuff came. We finally got the phone call from the moving company and I met them at the apartment. Our shipment of household goods was pretty paltry in that great big van. The movers brought in all the boxes and then gave me the official list to sign. All the boxes were there. As we were finishing up, I noticed, at the bottom of the list of numbers representing all the boxes, the word “broom.” I pointed that out to one of the movers.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, there is a broom out there in the van.” So, our broom made the long trip, across the ocean, across half the country, lying loosely among the crates, all the way to Waco. There was a piece of masking tape around the handle that had our shipping number on it. It was definately our broom.

We had a bed and a crib. My parents had purchased some new pieces of furniture for their den, but had saved the sofa and chair for us. An aunt and uncle, who had recently moved to Waco, had a kitchen table and chairs that didn’t fit in their new home, and they gave us that. Mother was also ready to redo my bedroom, and gave us the desk and the chest of drawers from that room. She’d planned to buy us a crib, but, since we’d been given one, she bought a chest of drawer for Kevin’s things, instead.

We were all set, except for that piece of furniture that all new parents need. A rocking chair. We bought a rocking chair for rocking our new baby.

As essential as that rocking chair has been for us, I was surprised to have difficulty actually finding photos.

We wondered how much it would cost to find a similar rocking chair to put in this space. We talked about trying to find someone to repair it, as my sister and brother-in-law have moved to Seattle. And I brought up the fact that we have another rocking chair. “It’s too big,” he said. We measured all the parts of it, and it’s only a smidgen larger. It came from my paternal grandmother’s house. It’s really sturdy.

And, because I never thought about asking, I’m sad to not know if they bought the chair, if it was a gift, was it handed down from other family members. I never thought to ask the questions. I’d like to know. But, I guess it’s more important that it still does its job as a rocking chair, even with its secret history. And, even if it is only I who rocked a sad toddler, who sat and read a magazine article, who relaxed while the pasta was cooking, who took a moment to thank God for a warm home in winter and a cool home in summer, and a place to rest and relax, even for just a few minutes at a time, that’s enough joy for me.