The Velveteen Rocker

Since before I can clearly remember, my mother's blue striped rocking chair has creaked and squeaked as Wells babies were calmed there. Photos document it's age--as children, who now have children of their own, sit --timelessly piled in my young mother's lap. It was a place where books were read, nursery rhymes sung, and little heads --sweaty with fever--nestled close enough to hear her heartbeat.

The accompaniment of the creaking was constant. It could be heard through walls, a floor below.

As the years wore on, Wells children's legs growing more and more lanky, the soft velvet-like stripes wore thin. Eventually the seat was covered with a twin sheet, and moved out of my mother's room. When I brought my first-born from the hospital, we tried a couple of nights in our apartment alone, (Star was in the middle of finals for his 1st semester of graduate school), and then packed up for HOME. The rocker was placed in a room I had once shared with my younger sister, Carrie. In our canopy beds we had wondered what being "grown-ups" would feel like. I sat now, propped up with pillows, trying to learn how to feed my tiny child, the rhythmic squeaking keeping time to the Christmas carols I hummed to him.

My father has retired from BYU after a lifetime there. My mother has packed up her house and moved with him to South Africa. The seasons have changed. And while my mother now comforts her children from Skype, her worn rocker has not finished it's season. It has recently moved to the room of my sixth baby. It's fraying cushion and thread bare arms have been covered by a sheet to mask it's age. But it's familiar song is unmistakable.

I suppose a little WD-40 would quiet it significantly --it might have 30 years ago, but as that chubby baby's body relaxes against my body, close enough to hear my heartbeat, it's as though I can hear my mother's.

It is in the rhythm of that very "real" velveteen rocker.