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Meghan O’Driscoll

A Throne Fit for A King

There was a knock on the door. Tom, who is now my uncle, was here to pick up my Aunt Katie for a date. Expecting that eventually my grandfather would get up to answer the door, Tom continued to knock, but my grandfather remained still in his rocking chair. Upon entering the front porch, one could look through the door and almost always, unless there was some kind of emergency, see the back of my grandfather’s head as he sat in an old brown rocking chair. If you did not know my grandfather, you might be thinking that he was just sleeping, but if you did, you knew that that chair was his territory, and he hardly budged from it for anything. Eventually, after several knocks, Tom just walked in. He proceeded into the living room and attempted to greet my grandfather. They ended up carrying on an entire conversation without my grandfather having gotten out of the chair or even having turned his head. There were no muscular problems; this was just his stance. No one in our family saw his behavior as stand-offish but rather explained to people “that was just simply his chair and his territory.” He thought in it, ate in it, read in it, slept in it, and watched television in it. Whenever a serious talk was to be had, he would have to be sitting in the chair to be able to carry on the conversation.

The chair is, to say the least, nothing spectacular. It is a brown rocking chair made of wood with a built-in cushion that is decorated with a 70’s style, pastel-colored, floral pattern. If not used to the obnoxious pattern, I would imagine that staring at it for too long would have a sort of numbing effect on the eyes for most people. In fact, if we decided to have a garage sale tomorrow, we probably wouldn’t get more than ten bucks for it. Don’t think we are keeping it around for its high quality or tremendous comfort either, because we’re not. Sitting on it for too long can do serious damage to your posture, and as we would find out later, it occasionally makes a high-pitched squeaking sound if not sat on by the right person, almost as if it is protesting. At this point, the reader is probably wondering, “Why, if so ugly and uncomfortable, are you keeping the thing around?”

In November of 1998, my grandfather passed on, and my father, sister, and I all moved into his old house. It was the house my dad grew up in, so it was still furnished as if it were still 1972. We bought our own couches and tables and even redid the kitchen and upstairs, but one thing that was not touched was the rocking chair. I’m not sure if it’s for convenience, or if my father is just trying to keep up with the tradition, but my dad’s life revolves around that chair in the same manner as my grandfather’s did. All normal everyday activities from that point forward would be conducted in the chair. In fact, it came to the point where I would look for the back of my dad’s head at the top of the chair to see if he was home or not, rather than just looking for his car in the garage.

Needless to say, the chair has fallen apart on several different occasions, none of which can be blamed on my father because it always seems to stay in place for him. For my sister and me, or any of our other family members, however, the chair will squeak, and the brackets will come loose. Somehow, for my dad, the thing always stays in place. It’s almost as if my grandfather is looking down on our living room and making sure that the tradition lives on and that he is simultaneously living in the chair too, only through my dad. So, by respecting my grandfather’s wishes, my dad will remain in the chair for as long as possible until the next “man of the house” dares to sit in it. I wouldn’t even be able to picture our living room without that chair in it. Even though the pattern is unsightly, and it could very well fall apart at any minute, I know the true test to see if my future husband is the right one for me or not will be to see if he can sit in that chair without it coming apart or squeaking. Then, I will know.