The Wagon Wheel Coffee Table

One of my favorite movies is "When Harry Met Sally".  I have forgotten how many times I've seen it but each time I do watch it I laugh like I'm seeing it for the first time. It provides such insight into male/female relationships and allows us really to laugh at ourselves as we have all at some time or another exhibited the behaviors of Harry and Sally.

In one scene Harry is newly divorced. His friends Marie and Jess have decided to live together but are arguing over including the wagon wheel coffee table Jess owns in the decor of their new apartment. Harry, raw from his recent divorce, is doubtful about the prospect of lasting love. He loses control and reminds them even if they think their relationship is perfect today they will one day be fighting over the ugly wagon wheel coffee table. We all laugh because we understand how things - even the ugliest of possessions take on significant meaning in a time of transition and loss.

For me my wagon wheel table was a headboard. It belongs to a bedroom set of Dan's. Twelve years ago my mother's neighbor was dying of cancer. With her only child halfway across the country my mother saw to it that she was not alone as the cancer progressed. When she died, her grateful son offered my mother a bedroom set from the house. I remember the day my mother arrived at our house in Pennsylvania with the set. Although it was at least fifty years old it looked brand new.  She wanted our son  Dan to have it. The headboard was for a double bed so Dan never used it and soon Gary decided it would work well in our bedroom.

Last week Dan told me that he was moving over his bedroom set to my house with the exception of the headboard. "Dad is taking that to the new house," he said.  "What, "I thought to myself, "how dare your father break up this set for his own purpose." On Sunday night, as Gary stood in the driveway and we discussed this further I could feel my anger intensify.

If truth be told, the headboard is the ugliest piece of this set. It is a classic 1950's piece of furniture and I would be hard pressed to admire its beauty. Yet what it represents to me is something deeper - a lack of respect, a failure to understand the tremendous loss I have felt over the last several years, and what I perceive to be a lack of feelings. Surely it would be simple to ask if this is something I want to keep rather than break up a set of furniture willy nilly. It reminds me too much of the demise of our marriage where respect was thrown to the wind for perceived individual happiness without any opportunity for my input. These days, I feel like I am the only one mourning and realizing the finality of everything. As a comedian once said, denial is not just a river in Africa.

So, am I just a sensitive person or someone who is destined to move through her grief now so I can comfort others later? Twenty years ago I attended the funeral of the mother of one of my grad school friends. At fifty she had fought a twelve year battle with ovarian cancer and lost. She left behind a grieving husband and five children, the youngest who was just thirteen. Trying to make sense of this early death her son said it best in her eulogy. "The role Mom played," he said, "was to always be one step ahead of us to prepare us for what was to come." It was fitting that even in death she was playing this role.

So today I yield the ugly headboard - my own version of the wagon wheel coffee table with a hope that I provide an example of cooperation to my children and soften the blow of what we have all lost. I hope but don't expect that one day Gary will give pause about what happened. For now though, I need to move forward so that I prepare this new version of our family for what is to come.