Shabby Chic is the stool from our original bedroom suite.

There is a story to this little stool.
When Mo died and the time came for the farm to be sold and me to move
to this house I now live in, it was time to say goodbye also to the contents of
the house that had been our home for thirty years.
Looking back it is all a bit hazy really, as it is when one is in a state of grieving.
I sold two items only. Steve had his own furniture and he and Ann were off on their Big OE,
so extra furniture was of no use to them.
The big rimu dresser that Mo so loved was bought by Felicity and Dennis.
And the almost new leather Danske Mobler lounge suite that Mo also loved
was bought by nephew Mathhew. Both gone to special people in our lives and Mo would have liked that.
Our bedroom suite was, like our marriage, thrty years old.
Time for it to go too I thought. I asked Matt would he like it. A bit of borer, a bit worn, it wasn't worth much
So along with our old dining room suite, away it went. I gave it away.

Now time goes by and things change
and as they do, children's belongings sometimes get left at parent's homes for storage purposes,
and our old bedroom suite ended up at my sister's house.
We all gathered there for Christmas Day 2009.
A poignant day . For now it was my sister who had nursed and farewelled a loved husband and her children, their father.

There in the lounge, as we celebrated christmas was the little stool from my old bedroom suite,
adding another seat at the table of a much extended family.
For some reason, and maybe it was the season, the more I looked at the little stool with the tatty pale green cover I had loved,
the more emotional memories flooded my mind.
The bedroom suite - that had witnessed the love, the babies, little boys snuggling in, lots of laughter and the tears of loss.
The more the memories came the more I wanted to take the little stool home.

Take it home said my sister, and I did.
And here it is in my lovely new bedroom.
A relic. A touchstone. Something tangible. A little sacrament from the past.

So, if the old bedroom suite survives Matt. I'm sorry it no longer has a shabby little stool to go with the dressing table.
But one day, when you farewell a rather whacky aunt, you can have it back again!

(and now that I have written this - I laugh at myself. I am aware of that egoic voice...living in the past!
Such a slow learner I am!)