Breaking Bed

In May 1978 my grandmother Osborn died out in Columbia, Missouri, where she and my grandfather had retired, living in one of those now-popular "stages of care" places. It was called Lenoir and was operated by the Disciples of Christ, the church which my grandfather had served for decades. (The place is now in different hands.)

He died in 1965, but I am glad that both of them got to live out their lives in the little brick cottage they loved and never had to enter the large nursing facility on the grounds. (Some years ago, by the way, I visited the site--and discovered their cottage had been razed to make way for a new building project.)

Anyway, that summer my older brother, Richard, and I drove a U-Haul out to Columbia (Joyce and I were living in Kent, Ohio, at the time) where we removed from storage those things that my mom had not taken or disposed of--and had saved for us. Among the things that came to us was a bedroom set--two dressers, a double bed--that I had known my entire life.

Back in Kent, we installed the items in our house--and they have been our "master bedroom" set ever since. It's been wonderful, waking in that bed every morning, looking across the room to see furniture that once belong to my beloved Osborn grandparents. (My middle name, by the way, is Osborn--as is our son's.)

We've never had a lick of trouble with any of it--though we have replaced the box spring and mattress.

Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon I went upstairs for my wonted post-bread-baking nap, and as I lay down, I heard an odd complaint from the bed. A creaking/cracking kind of sound. Never mind ... into the arms of Morpheus I swiftly went.

I didn't hear the sound again.

Then, last night, Joyce and I were ending the day--as is our custom--streaming bits of "our" shows. Ten minutes of this, fifteen of that.

A sudden crack! And my half of the bed was now a foot lower than Joyce's. Something, obviously (even to a practical doofus like me), had broken.

We lifted up the mattress and box spring and saw that a support piece had indeed broken away. Now what?

We took a footstool and put it under the box spring for some support, and now the bed looked not broken but odd. Slightly out of whack. Out of kilter. Maybe even tipsy. (You know!)

But it survived the night.

This morning Joyce got hold of our handyman service, and next week they will send out their best carpenter to deal with it.

I don't want a new bed. Ever. My history binds me to the one we have. Having a different bed in that room would be just ... wrong.

And I am reminded how--in a very emotional way--Emily Dickinson left instructions that when she died, she wanted to make sure that they bore her coffin to the nearby cemetery in such a fashion that her head would face the home that she had loved so much.