My Mother’s Couch- A Southern Original Short

Yesterday, I mentioned that I went to get seafood and when the freezer opened for my scallops I saw lobster that triggered a memory of my parents, as they introduced me to lobster as a child and I feel sure regretted it later. I am pretty sure that was just a situational memory but today, a couch literally fell out of the heavens.

My mother and I had many differences and usually never really saw eye to eye on much of anything. Let’s just say that we did not really have the same taste although she loved everything I bought for me and I loved almost nothing she bought for me or her. She had this couch that had a cream colored background and was pink and blue floral. It was purchased from a nice furniture store, but I always thought it was ugly and old ladyish!! It was rarely used and when my mother died I had a local furniture consignment store pick it up along with most of her other furniture that was not of sentimental value.

However, right after my mother died I was talking with my friend, who is a florist and I told him I wanted him to do her casket spray. He asked what her favorite colors were and I told him pink and and blue. I told him about the cream, blue and pink couch that she loved and I hated. He broke it to me gently and rather bluntly as only he could do and said ” Girl, I am going to tell you, God don’t make blue flowers!” and with that I told him to work his magic.

The day of the funeral I was talking to my cousin and we commented on how beautiful the casket spray was and she said it looked like my mother’s couch.I felt like I had described my mother’s taste to my florist friend perfectly and never has there been a more beautiful casket spray!

A few months after my mother’s death, the furniture consignment shop called and told me that they could not get her couch cleaned. I asked why on earth it need cleaning as it was rarely used except for the occasional guest and me to crash on after I had my Thanksgiving meal of her magnificent food. They suggested I either pick it up or they could donate it to a charity. I went down there knowing they had confused her couch with another flower patch and when I saw the couch and lifted the cushions I saw a very yellowed couch from the nicotine of the Lucky Strike non-filtered cigarettes that robbed me of my mother. I realized at that moment that we often try not to see the obvious and while I always saw that couch as ugly, I never saw it as dirty or stained. My mother always saw it as a beautiful couch and never accepted that her cigarette habit would kill her and ruin her lovely garden of a couch.

So today as I was riding down the road I spotted a truck with a trailer carrying my mother’s couch! Well, I knew it was not my mother’s couch as I knew where her couch was. This was a nice clean couch just like my mother’s. Keep in mind that next month my mother will have been in heaven 6 years and she probably had the couch at least 20 years prior to that. I followed the trailer and couch and caught up with it at a red light and looked over and smiled. I realized that it really was a beautiful couch after all. I went to the humane society which was my destination and went upstairs to what is to someday be the employee’s lounge and there it was, my mother’s couch that I took to the humane society, which is where my heart will always be, and I realized that we all see things differently and today I saw that couch through my mother’s eyes and it truly was, and is,  a beautiful couch and will always be!!