Rock of Ages

I tried to take a photo of this newspaper article but I could not get it to face the correct direction, so I gave up and took a photo of it on my computer. This rocking chair was featured in my local newspaper and was purchased by my sister when she was 16 years old at a junk store in L.A.

Somewhere, I know I have a photo of her pulling off the old upholstery and getting it ready to be refinished, but alas, I can not find it. I can picture my sister with her hair in a bun on the top of her head, wearing a plaid painting shirt, and working away.

She and I had an agreement that whoever grew up and had the first baby would become the rocking chairs owner. When I was the first one to have a baby she simply could not part with the chair, so she bought an antique wicker rocker, recovered the cushion in red and white pillow ticking and presented it to me at my baby shower. I completely understood why she couldn't part with it and I gratefully accepted the rocker she had redone for me. After all, she was going to be an auntie for the first time and she needed that rocking chair to rock her first niece.

As fate would have it, my only sister, did not live to have her own babies. She adored babies and I'm certain she is still rocking babies on the other side and tending her flower garden. She passed on when she was only twenty eight. She would have been so pleased to see the rocking chair she loved so much make the local paper.

This lovely rocker has now been reupholstered at least three times since she purchased it for $15.00, dreaming of babies to come. When she passed I was only twenty six and my second daughter was only eight months old, so the chair was handed down to me along with the legacy of love she left behind.

The rocker now sits in my living room dressed in red and green topiary tree fabric. I wonder what she would have thought of my choice.