Over the break we went to Goodwill to drop off a bunch of things from our cleanout, and decided to check out the furniture to see if the glider was in good enough condition. Um, it was apparently PRISTINE comparatively speaking -- no stains, no rips, not 70s plaid, just a few errant untrimmed strings from where the cats have naughtily used it as a scratching post.
We left Goodwill and thought, I don't think that's the place for such an important piece of furniture.
The thought of leaving this chair at Goodwill that was supposed to be where I bottle fed and rocked our mythical baby, a gift from Bryce's mom that we picked out together once upon a hopeful time...it just didn't sit right. Now, would it have been an amazing find for someone? Yes. Would we feel guilty? Also yes.
There's another store, Once Upon A Child, that is a consignment shop. You can get clothes, strollers, pretty much anything you would need for a baby at really great prices, gently used. They also pay you on the spot if you bring things in and they accept them -- and they would take a glider.
But then the thought of disassembling it into two pieces and bringing it to a place like that had too many echoes of peeling nursery decals off the wall and making a pile of nursery things by the door to be donated, and it didn't feel right either. I feel like any money we would get would have to be donated to a children's charity or domestic violence shelter, because that ALSO didn't feel right.
Our wonderful cleaning lady has taken baby things before, as her sister had a baby recently and needed pretty much everything. So we thought, maybe we'll hang on to it just until she comes to see if she wants it.
While I was at school, she saw the chair and said, "Oh wow, this is a really great chair! I will totally take this chair!" She was super appreciative and shooed Bryce away when he tried to help carry it down to her minivan.
But that meant that it was gone before I got home.
I was caught off guard by my reaction when Bryce told me on my way home from school that the glider was gone. I was glad, so glad, that it was going to someone who would appreciate it (and I suspect it may be her downtime chair, which is also joy-giving). But... it was also the last big thing that really had a specific purpose. The last "this was bought for a baby that never was, and we really can't see it without thinking about what it was meant for."
I cried the rest of the way home. It made me (un)surprisingly sad.
I am not sad about my life now. I am not sad that our house is not made for babies. I'm not going to lie, I sometimes have the guilty feeling that I'm grateful not to be raising a child in these times. It doesn't mean I didn't want it, desperately, at the time. It doesn't negate the love that I had for a nonexistent, completely elusive child.
But there was something about that glider being gone that reopened a long-shiny scar, at least for a couple of hours.
The room is so much more functional and roomy now that the glider isn't there anymore. I got an area rug that's coming this week to cozy it up a bit, and at some point Bryce will hang his guitars on the wall... and then there will be nothing recognizable left. I really wonder sometimes why we moved with it to the new house... but it really was a great chair. I'm glad someone is going to use it and enjoy it without the history and ghosts of what could have been.
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