Frankie on the Blue Couch
A 3-part Retrospective
Part I:
The first time Jeremy held my hand, that was pretty much it.
We were sitting on the blue couch next to each other, talking to our friend Randy (who I don't think had any idea.) Jeremy started out tickling my arm. I'm a sucker for this, it's how my family used to help me relax and go to sleep when I was little. I knew he would hold my hand. I knew it would be instantly complicated. But for the first time I decided I didn't care, and I let him.
A few weeks later, we had figured out the complications.
And we said I love you for the first time to each other on the big blue couch. October 16th, 2002.
8 years ago.
(Best. Bed hair. Ever.)
Part II:
6 months ago I lay on the big blue couch. We watched conference. I watched Jeremy take care of Frankie. I clung to my hospital mug (courtesy Frankie's birth) and drank a lot of water. I searched for some comfort in the talks.
I braved Easter Dinner. Later that night Daddy came over, he and Jerm gave me a Priesthood blessing. I laid on the couch, not well enough to sit up. The blessing gave me an inkling. I wasn't told I would get better right away, I was told it was time to go listen to some doctors. And so go we did, the very next day.
We returned a week later, and the blue couch continued to be my home for a few weeks. Many a sleepless nights, frustrating days, and encouraging hours on the blue couch. I had a certain way I would set myself up in the corner. It was an accomplishment worth telling everyone when I started getting up by myself to go the bathroom and such after only a few days home.
I would come down at night when I couldn't sleep, lay on the couch, and turn on the BYU channel. I remember sometimes it helped, and sometimes it made me discouraged. I would ask myself "how am I going to be a good Mother if I can't even get up off this couch?"
Looking at it now, it wasn't that long at all. A blip on the radar, really.
But when you're in the middle, sometimes it feels endless.
(Re-enacting the big race while watching Cars)
Part III:
Today there was a moment, a short one, mind you, where we all snuggled on the blue couch together and watched conference. Jeremy was supposed to have a clinical today, but they sent him home. So we were blessed with that moment.
I printed out coloring pages for me and Frankie. I colored on and off all day. Frankie colored for a few minutes.
This conference was beautiful, and for me, it made everything seem so simple.
My favorite line, and I'm afraid I didn't take proper notes so I'm not sure who the speaker was, but he said something like (speaking of Christ) "If He were next to you: would you think it, would you say it, would you do it?"
Would I?
I like to hope that if Jesus Christ visited our home, I could feel comfortable enough to invite him to sit on the big blue couch.
I could tell him that I kneeled next to it as a child to say family prayer, and that now my own child kneels there. That even though it's worn, tearing in places, the recliner is broken, it stains if you look at it wrong and it consumes toys and remotes with a voracious appetite... plus it's very, well - blue - we love it. We love all of our modest furniture and our little home, but most of all we love the feeling that is here when we do the simple, right things.
That feeling, that spirit, that faith - is what keeps us going. And it's why I'm happy, always happy, if I just remember. I'm grateful for the blue couch, and the million other little things in my life, that help me remember.
