A Happy Day with a Long (very long) Anticipated Outcome

Have you ever wanted something for about fifty years, and then finally gotten it?  I don’t mean something like getting your PhD or becoming the CEO of your company.  I don’t mean goals, I mean an object.  The finally getting of it can go either way - either a big let down, since the object did not actually bring the expected happiness, or giddy delight that the wished for has finally been obtained. 

It was when I was a teen ager that I noticed that my grandfather was sitting in my other grandfather’s chair.  When I wondered about this, it turned out that when my maternal grandfather ascended to the great reading room in the sky, my grandmother gave his special chair to my other grandfather, and it became his special chair. 

Its delightful growly mouth  - it has two!

I recall being very little and sitting on my Grandfather Forrestal’s lap, listening to the radio, having the funnies read to me, or being told that, “Yes, I could indeed stay up to midnight!  When the big hand is here, on the twelve, and the little hand is here, on the nine, it will be midnight, and then you must go to bed.”  This seemed incredibly exotic, not to mention exciting – this business of staying up to midnight.  I never was allowed to stay up so late in my parent’s house.  Later, I remember many happy times with my Grossvater sitting in the chair while we watched tv or took naps.  A vivid scene, which still seems quite fresh, is little Rebecca being sooooo agitated as we watched Mohammed Ali in some bit important fight.  Rebecca was terrified that her hero might not win, and had been fretting about the possibility for days.  Fortunately, he did win, and family serenity was preserved.  Years later, I was visiting my very aged Grandfather while Dakki was doing errands.  When she returned, she asked him if we had had a good visit.  “Excellent, the best ever!” he told her.  While she left on her errands, he had sat in his chair, I lounged nearby on the couch, and we both had a nice nap.  I thought it was a good visit too, but was a little offended that it had been the best ever.

I desperately wanted that chair, and my aunt knew it, but she desperately wanted to keep it.  She did, however, promise  to leave it to me in her will.  The problem here is that I don’t think that she even has a will.  Once in recent times, after I had performed some valiant service, she told me I could take the chair.  Unfortunately, it was raining, so I said I would get it when the rain stopped.  Even more unfortunately, by the time the rain stopped, she had changed her mind.  And denied ever having said such a thing.  I must have misunderstood, she said.  Harrumph! 

Its darling little claws

Then one day, as I was napping in my chair, through the fog, I heard her voice saying, “Grossvater’s chair.”  I sprang awake.  I had not misheard!  I rushed over and there it was – ready to come to my house!  I am so pleased.  No disappointment with this wish fulfillment.  The original leather cushions were worn to smithereens, so I have to make something new, but in the meantime, I have plopped down a few cushions which have been lurking about here, and it is now my happy new readiing (and sometimes napping) chair.  Hurrah!!!!!

And it is a Morris Chair!