The Rocking Chair

It's been a while since this actually occurred, but I wasn't ever able to get around to blogging about it and I not only want you to know this great story, I want you to know how great my sister is.

My mother rocked me and my sister in the same rocking chair, a chair that she kept around until I was in high school. And, then after realizing there probably wasn't much use in keeping it around much longer since it wasn't being used and it would definitely get more use from someone else, she donated it. Our church had just built a new sanctuary, which included a cry room for parents to use with small children during the service. It was set up much like a nursery, but with rows of chairs and rockers.

My rocker became one of those. But not before she wrote on the bottom: "Loving rocked Amy Susan Ramage, November 9, 1975."

It's weird because I didn't really think about that rocker at all when Scarlet was a baby. But after Will was born, I thought about it all the time. I missed it. I wanted it. I wanted that connection to my mom...no matter how old it was. And, a few days before Mothers' Day this year I had a dream that it was in Will's nursery and I was using it to rock him.

Then, on Wednesday before Mothers' Day this year, I got a text from Julie around 3 p.m. in the afternoon. It simply said, "Can you come outside?" I was just about to text her back and make fun of her about texting me on accident, but I went with my gut to the front door. When I opened it and stepped outside, she and both boys were in the driveway with my rocking chair.

After 19 years, she tracked it down for me.

My mom used to tell us the story of the rocking chair. "When you were a baby, I used to rock you in this chair. It's an awful old chair. It would never stay in one place. It just moved backward as you rocked. So, I would pick it up and move it all the way across the room. I would face the wall and start rocking you. We would rock all the way to the other side of room. And if you were still awake, I would pick it up and start over again."

I rock Will in it every single night (sometimes three, four or five times a night). It still moves itself backward as you rock. I imagine her doing the same 36 years ago with me and what a kick she would really get out of all of this.