No, he wasn't drunk. Or crazy. Or anything like that. He doesn't drink, and he's probably the sanest person I know.
He'd had the chair about 20 years, and it was already well into its 30s before he purchased it. It was one of those old-fashioned chairs - square and boxy with wide, flat arms that were perfect for him to set his TV dinner on while he watched the noon news program.
It was brown vinyl in its previous life, and when it started to split and tear, he duct-taped it. With silver tape.
Then the cushion started to sag, and he stuffed foam and old throw pillows into some old fabric and stitched it up, so it would be comfortable. He didn't care how it looked, just that it felt good to sit on when he was tired.
When the duct tape got to be too sticky, he re-covered the chair in dark green vinyl. Eventually it started to split and was duct-taped again. He used red tape, that time.
When my parents move in the springtime the chair was expected to go with them, but it had just disintegrated too much. It had moved far beyond reasonable repair. The springs were broken, the cushioning had collapsed, the back was coming apart, and the vinyl was trying to split in too many places.
I loved that chair, though. I know my dad did, too.
It was the chair he was sitting in when he gave a bottle of formula to my precious little daughter, only a few months old at the time. He kept loosening the cap so she could drink without the bottle stopping up, and he twisted it so far it came right off. It drenched them both, and I'm still not sure to this day whose look of surprise was better.
It was the chair he came home to after he got out of the hospital when he had his stroke, back in 1996. He learned to talk again by reading aloud to my daughter, who perched on the wide, flat arm of the chair and listened to him intently. She was three.
"Look how well Grandpa reads!" she exclaimed to me at the time. I burst into tears.
She and my dad spent countless hours sharing books, meals, and an old jar full of even older buttons on the arms of that chair. They talked about the different sizes and colors and shapes of those buttons. They compared them and spun them around and counted them. Occasionally, one or two would escape and try to hide between the arm and the cushion, and a button hunt would ensue.
They played with dolls and cars and beads and silly things, and it kept my dad young. It kept him strong, helped him recover, and helped him move forward.
He went back to the flea market on the weekends and did things around the house, and - no matter where he went - that chair was always waiting for him. He watched TV in it, napped in it, and held my little girl when she cried. He held me a couple of times, too.
I suppose it's silly to feel sad over a chair, and even sillier to blog about it, but I don't care. That chair was a part of my history. It was a part of my life, my daughter's life, and my parents' lives for the last 20 years.
My dad is 78 now.
I thought, some day, his old chair would sit in my house when my parents had both passed on. I'd have it repaired and re-covered, and I'd keep it until I, too, had passed on. To respect and honor my dad and all he'd done for our family. To remember his legacy and his love.
It wasn't to be.
Things don't feel quite the same in the house without that chair. Watching him take it outside and apart was surreal - both sad and interesting at the same time. I helped because it was the right thing to do, but my heart wasn't in it. I didn't want to see that chair disappear from our lives.
Tonight it may be gone from the living room, but the memory of it lives on. Best of all, in my room I have treasures filched from the backyard where the chair breathed its last - a little bit of brown vinyl, and three mismatched buttons from the old button jar.
