A Replaceable Heirloom

Beverly Beckham

The chair has been in the family for 65 years. My husband's parents, both born in Great Britain, bought it for their daughter when she was 2 years old. It is child-size but it shrieks "adult," not only because it has a high back, spindly wooden legs, and curved wooden arms, but also because it is covered in green velvet.

This decorative object lived in my in-laws' living room for years and years among furniture that was bigger and bolder. It was then passed along to me and it has lived in my living room for even longer.

My older daughter, Lauren, claimed it as hers as soon as she could toddle. She'd sit in it to read her books, or just to sit and listen to adult talk. She took to it the way a princess takes to a throne. The green chair and Lauren were a perfect fit.

One day, when she was 3 or 4, she wrote on the chair. In pen. All over the green velvet. 

I punished her by making Lauren sit in the chair for the rest of the day. What was I thinking? After all, she liked sitting in the chair. She liked being in the living room, away from the fray. She liked the soft velvet on her skin and the hard wood under her hands. 

It was summer and hot and I had made plans with a friend. Her kids and my kids were getting together for a play date — to swim. Now I had told my daughter, "You’re going to sit in that chair for the rest of the day." But I’d also told my son that we were going swimming.

Never not follow through on what you tell a child. That's what I learned when I was studying to be a teacher and that’s what I took with me into motherhood. If you say "You’re grounded for a week," you cannot renege after three days. You have to be firm.

So I put the chair in the car and took it with us. It seems ludicrous now, Lauren in the chair, the rest of the kids in the pool.

The Chair Now ...

Fast forward to the next generation. Now it is Lauren's daughter, Lucy, and Lauren's sister's daughter, Charlotte, who sit in the chair. They fight over it. They squeeze their little bodies into the corners then wiggle and kick until one of them gives up and heads for the couch.

The chair is still green velvet with no sign of pen marks, which means it must have been reupholstered at one time, though I don't remember doing this. Maybe my mother-in-law, who’d given it to me when Lauren was born, took it home and had it fixed; it's something she would have done.

Last week I was watching Charlotte and Lucy and they were taking turns with the chair, sharing so well, "My turn. Your turn," a sweet litany, and startling, because just ten minutes before they had been fighting over my lap. "Mine!" Charlotte said, plunking herself down on top of Lucy who was on top of me. "No mine!" Lucy said, pushing Charlotte away.  

"There's room for both of you," I'd told them and they snuggled close and smiled and it was a Kodak moment.  

But then they moved on to the green chair and everything was great until it was Charlotte’s turn ... and she said, "Uh-oh. I wet."

Uh–oh. I goofed. I'd put big girl pants on her. I'd taken off her diaper and given her a pep talk. "Do you want to wear Lucy’s big girl pants and be a big girl, too?" Of course I kept asking her if she had to "go potty." And of course she shook her head every time.  

I grabbed some towels and washed her and the chair and smiled and said, "It's okay, Charlotte. Everyone has accidents. Don't worry. It's just a chair." I did not laugh in front of her. But I had to leave the room before she and Lucy saw the laughter in my eyes.

The green chair. The family heirloom. As soggy as a potted plant. And the thing of it all is that I really meant what I said. It's okay. It's just a chair. It's, after all, the kids who sit in it — three generations so far — who are the real treasures.