Matt OsbornI’m a sucker for passed down anything. One granddaddy’s old pocket knives. My other granddaddy’s shoes and baseball cards. And now, this ol’ desk.
Rewind to circa 1963-1964. My wife’s grandparents were in the midst of building the house they’d share until 2002 when her granddaddy would pass on and where her grandmother would stay until she went on up last September. 55 good years.
But during that time when that house’s foundation was just getting set, the story goes that they were walking in the woods along with their young son, my future father-in-law, when they came upon a door leaning against a tree.
It would not go to waste.
The door ended back up at the house, got a few wooden legs and cast iron rods attached to it, a large piece of glass placed on top of it, and my father-in-law’s desk it became. In that house it would sit for the next 55 years.
When a loved one passes, you struggle to decide what to keep and what to let go. The random chairs and couches are one thing. But the dresser and mirror those two looked into for all those years, and the sewing tables where she sat and made my wife’s Azalea Trail dress, and that old desk that was handmade from a door found in the woods sometime around 1964. Those were coming with us.
The dresser and mirror are now in the bedroom. The sewing tables have replaced the random end tables we had in the living room. And here in the office sits that desk, holding up this keyboard that’s typing these words.
55 years old and at least a million words strong. And counting.
