Pay It Forward

I'll be helping my sister move into her new house tomorrow. Actually, it's a forty-year-old house, but it's new to her. For the last few months, she's been fixing it up - painting rooms, putting in new carpet, redoing the master bathroom and making other minor repairs. She became a regular customer at the hardware store and discovered the magic of nail guns, belt sanders and band saws, of which she recently remarked, "I can see why people love to do home improvements. Power tools make it so easy!" Since I've only ever used a hammer and a hacksaw, I just nodded in agreement and looked forward to the day when home improvement wouldn't mean smashed thumbs and crooked cuts.

Anyway, I'm giving her some of my furniture to help start her off and by "my furniture" I mean furniture my folks gave me, which their parents or grandparents gave them. So, really, this is just the next step in our family edition of pay it forward.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but part of me is going to miss the furniture, especially the couch in the photo. It originally belonged to my great-grandparents and I can recall exactly where it was located in their tiny house. I remember rolling around on it and thinking it was the biggest couch I had ever seen. It's only an inch or two longer than seven feet in length, but it seemed monster-sized to me back then.

After my great-grandmother passed away, it came to my parents' place and I remember what it looked like before my mom covered it with fabric and added the pillows. Of course, as you can see, I didn't do any modifications or makeovers to it because, frankly, I thought it had been through enough. Now it's going to my sister. I'm sure she'll take good care of it and "make it her own" to fit with her new place.

As for me, I'll relish the empty space for a while and eventually fill it with something new.