iN THiS BeD

In this bed I have lain for almost a decade.

I have not made any babies in it, maybe one, but probably not, as the third child was probably procreated on a family room floor, or a couch, far away from the cries of the smaller children, in a moment of hurriedness where I said, “Strictly clinical! Baby-making sex only!”

This bed has held sick childen.

It has nursed hangovers.

If only I could count the hours in which I have slept.

It has lumps. It is uncomfortable. I wonder if I have spent more hours in it than out of it in the past ten years? Probably so.

Today, we put this bed out to pastures. For a new one.

I wish I wrote this when I first thought of writing this. When I first woke from the bed I was sleeping in, when it was fresh in my mind, what I wanted to say about the bed I had slept in for so long. This companion of mine who will be mine no longer. It departs today. For a new lover comes.

My Westin Heavenly Bed.

Complete with 12-3/4 pillow-top. Oh how I will roll around in it. How I will luxuriate in its pillowiness. Is that even a word? I say it is! I am afraid to share the new bed with my family. I guess I will have to share the new bed with my husband right?

The old bed came along about the same time as my daughter. I spent 11 long overdue pregnant days with Tukey laying in that bed, waiting for something to happen, for a contraction, for water to break, for that baby to come.

Nothing. For 11 days. I lay there. Convinced that baby would never come. I remember the one day I didn’t leave that bed at all except for the one time I went downstairs and ate 3 or 4 Dunkin Donuts, then trudged back up to that horrid (not so horrid back then as it was new) bed, and got in.

I stayed there the whole day. Waiting for a baby to come. I stayed there and read. Probably cried. But mostly waited and slept. Waited for a baby who was 11 days late to get out of my belly.

Then, after that baby came, nine days after, I was back in that bed. Again. Crying. Crying about buildings that had crashed. Airplanes that had shattered the glass and steel, the world, that day. I lay in that same bed again. Crying. Holding that baby. In that bed. Wondering what the purpose would be to ever get out of that bed. Why bring a child into a terrible world like this, I had wondered.

And since then. That bed. That bed has nursed children to health. Has held crying babies. Has cuddled and nurtured and snuggled and tended when nightmares have been so bad there’s just no sense of sending them back to their own rooms now is there? When it makes more sense for someone else, someone much bigger and less scared to go sleep in another bed just this once, because this one tiny little child might just need this comfort tonight.

This bed has done that for these children.

So, while it is lumpy and crappy and there has been nightmares and sleepless nights, there have been memories and a safe haven in that bed that we are sending out.

There have been dreams and chats and laughter. There have been tears and quiet fights and lovemaking, sometimes loud, mostly quiet, oftentimes silly, because it’s us, and we’re silly and we laugh, and this is our life and it’s our bed, and we’ve made it and we’ve lied in it, oh, no we haven’t … we’ve never lied in it, but we have laid in it. We don’t lie in our bed. We tell the truth in our bed.

And, our new bed will arrive today, and I’m going to embrace it like I’ve never embraced a piece of furniture, and I’m going to love it like a dog lover loves a new pet, and I’m going to care for it like a florist cares for its peonies, and I’m going to treat it like I want it to treat me!

With respect and kindness and goodness! No jumping on this new bed please! No wrinkling of the new sheets please! Do not sit on the comforter the wrong way please! Shower before going to bed please!

We will make new plans in this bed; we will continue to raise our family from the foot of this bed. This bed will be the cornerstone to the future of what is to come. Yes, no babies will be made here, but dreams will be hatched.

Oh yes, dreams will be hatched!