I thought getting rid of our old, worn-out couch was the right thing to do. But I had no idea that it was hiding something that would make everything different.
Tom, my husband, had been planning for months to get rid of the couch, but it just stayed in the living room and took up space. I paid for a truck and took it to the dump because I had enough. When I got home, Tom’s response was nothing like what I had thought it would be.
When he saw that the couch was gone, his eyes got really big with shock. He asked, his face pale with fear, “You threw away the plan?”
I asked him about the plan because I didn’t understand. Tom’s behavior changed; he became hysterical and told me to get my shoes and leave with him right away. It was time to get something from the dump.
The ride was tense, and Tom’s silence made things even stranger for me. What could be so important that he would dig through trash to find it? When we got there, Tom ran outside, eager to find what he was looking for.
I saw that this wasn’t just about a couch as I watched him look. It was about something much more important. Tom finally found what he was looking for: a flaky, yellowed piece of paper tucked away in the couch’s padding.
He told her that the piece of paper was a map that he and his younger brother Jason had made when they were kids, and tears came down his face. They called it their “safe spot,” and it brought back both happy memories and the pain of a loss.
When Tom and his brother were young, they died in an accident, and the map was all that Tom had left of him. The couch was where they hid, and I took it away without meaning to.
When Tom told his story, it broke my heart because I didn’t know much about his past. The map became a new memory when we brought it home, framed it, and hung it in our living room.
After many years, our kids made their own maps, continuing the practice that Tom and Jason had started. As I watched Tom smile while he traced the lines of their art, I realized that recovery and understanding can happen in the strangest of ways.
Even though the old couch is gone, its story has brought us closer together and shown us that even small memories can be very important.
