Let It Go

On Trauma, Memory, and Attachment…To Furniture

Photo by Rob Whalen

By G.

Trauma interferes with memory. Not just the ability to recall memories, although it certainly does that. The experience of a traumatic event can actually prevent a person from making memories in the first place and it can seriously impede one’s ability to track the sequence of events.

This may be why I know that it was seven years ago that Rob and I drove to an estate sale at a condo somewhere in the South Bay—or maybe it was Orange County—to pick up a monstrous old mid-century stereo cabinet. Rob had scoured the internet for something a bit classier and more elegant to hold the turntable and TV. When he came to accept the fact that his taste would never match his budget, he turned to Craigslist and that’s where he found it: a gargantuan three-piece custom walnut-veneer media console with good bones and great legs. If we’d wanted to, we could have brought home the matching dining and end tables, but a whole ass living room set from the 60s was not what Rob was looking for.

I don’t remember what month it was that we acquired the stereo cabinet, or what kind of conversation precipitated its purchase, or whether there even was one. I just remember that we bought it in 2014 because shortly after the purchase—or maybe it was right before—my brother George died, unexpectedly, at the age of 27.

There are some things I’ll never forget about that day: Wednesday, November 12. I’ll never forget what I said when my dad told me George had passed away in his sleep (“No. No, no, no, no.”). I’ll never forget sending a chat to my work friend, Tyler, telling him I had to go because my brother died. I’ll never forget who I called next (Lindsay and Maria) and who called me (Taylor and Aria) and that I put in a load of laundry so that when Rob got home from work we would be able to head to my parents’ house with clean clothes.

But I don’t remember if we already had the stereo cabinet by then or if it came later.

For months after George died, all I did was work, cry, and sleep. I would cry in the morning when I remembered that he was dead and that it wasn’t all a bad dream. I would cry at my desk, sometimes because a song reminded me of him…sometimes for no reason. And I would sleep. Every evening, right after dinner, I would lie down on the couch with my dog and sleep until about midnight, when Rob would wake me up and then I’d lie down on the bed and sleep some more. And while I slept, Rob would go to work on the cabinet.

I have some memories of Rob building that stereo cabinet. The TV would be on, playing something soft and familiar, and Rob would be outside on the patio. Sawing. Sanding. Staining. He replaced the beveled walnut top of the cabinet with Baltic birch. He built new doors with exposed brass hinges. He restored the vintage speakers. And me? I slept.

For years, every time I looked at the cabinet, I would think of those months in my grief cocoon. The memories from that time are few, far between, and unfocused. I see them in my mind’s eye as if through a veil or camera lens covered with Vaseline. But fuzzy as they are, they comfort me. I felt so safe in my home, wrapped in a blanket, tucked in next to my dog, while, late into the nights, my best friend and partner for life built something beautiful for our family with his bare hands.

Last summer, Gus flew forehead first into that cabinet, spilling blood all over Rob and me and the living room floor and frantically asking, “Am I turning into the Hulk?” Three stitches and countless screams later, we came home from the ER and I glared daggers into the stereo cabinet. The bitch broke my baby. But I wasn’t ready to let it go.

Earlier this year, we moved into a home. Not our own home. Not our dream home. But a comfortable, clean home that costs too much money because it’s close to our offices and the beach. There wasn’t a good spot for the cabinet in the new place.

“We can get rid of it,” Rob would say.

“No way,” I’d reply. “You built that thing yourself. And I love it.”

Rob would say the stereo cabinet was never perfect. The doors were never flush. One of the legs was always wobbly. He would say building it was a great learning experience, but that it wasn’t a precious  work of art that needed to be preserved. But I wasn’t ready to let go of it. I wasn’t ready to lose the faint, swirling memories all wrapped up in the time that stereo cabinet entered my life—that incubation period when we were both being shaped, sanded, refined.

A couple weeks ago, I looked at our crowded living room—the cabinet wedged against the wall, the dining table perched precariously next to the floor-to-ceiling window, and the couch planted squarely between the two, creating a natural racetrack for the puppy and the five-year-old, who were, in that moment, taking turns vaulting over the furniture.

It was time.

Rob moved the three pieces of the stereo cabinet into his office. We got a small Baltic birch shelf and a couple of new speakers (no re-coning required) and moved the couch against the wall where it would be much harder to do flips over. The room breathes a little easier…and so do I. Rob sold the stereo cabinet on Craigslist for $100. He says he feels good about it.

I still love that stereo cabinet. I love that Rob rebuilt it. I love that he became a coaster guy, determined to preserve his painstakingly sanded and stained Baltic birch. I love that when you closed the doors, they didn’t line up perfectly while they made this satisfying “thwump” sound. I love that we resurrected someone’s custom creation and made it ours…and I love that we were able to let it go when it was time to make room for something new.

And I’ll never forget it.