It is the everyday objects of our lives that so often tell the story of us. I was given a book by a friend call The Bronte Cabinet by Deborah Lutz. In the book, the author tells the lives of the Bronte sisters through the everyday objects that they left behind. I was fascinated by the information that was gathered from these simple items but then I suppose that is what archaeology really is. Uncovering the left behind daily objects of the long gone civilization and then telling their story. This concept got me looking around my house. Looking at the objects both collected and used. As I stared meditatively at them, they shared their stories with me. The stories that were really a collective reading of my life.
We have a bench that sits out on our three season porch. It is made of sturdy wooden planks with a slightly sloping back. The arms and legs are made of solid wrought iron. With a decorative scrolling, the arms curl up and back around the seat of the bench on each side. The bench looks like your standard nice park bench or a bench you would see on the streets of a city. And in fact, that is exactly what it is.
When my husband was in his mid- twenties, he was out of the Navy and going to technical college in St. Paul. He was living in an apartment with a friend and they didn’t have a lot in the way of furniture. One night on their way home from a night out, they were lamenting about how it would be nice to even have one of these street benches to sit on. They were all bolted down until they came across one that happened to be sitting free and on its own. They tested picking it up , looked around, saw no one and off the three of them went. My husband eventually moved out to his own apartment and the bench went with him. I met him shortly there after where he was living in a basement apartment in St. Paul with the bench for a sofa. I remember spending time in that apartment watching movies. He would grab the pillows off his bed and stack them on the bench to make it somewhat tolerable to watch an entire movie. Of course, being madly in love was also distracting enough to not care about your aching back from sitting too long on a street bench.
Life moves on and so did we. We bought a house and moved in together along with the bench. It served as our sofa for a few weeks as we waited for our new furniture to arrive. We had very few possessions going into being home owners. The bench and a hand me down lazy boy from my mom was our grand set up. Eventually the furniture arrived as did so many other things over the years. The bench moved out to its permanent home on our three season porch. The porch is windows on all sides and is the first entrance to our home. The bench sits against the wall across from the outside door and under our living room windows. From this vantage point, anyone sitting on the bench has a full view of the neighborhood and inside the house. In the summer it is joined by a surplus of plants. In the winter the plants move indoors but the bench faithfully maintains its spot even in more barren surroundings.
For years the bench sat dutifully but mostly ignored. It was a part of the porch and that was about it. It took a golden retriever named Bjork to fulfill the bench’s true purpose. She was our first girl and the perfect dog from the start. She loved the outdoors and she loved to watch all the happenings in our little neighborhood. It was a love affair from day one between Bjork and the bench. It was her throne. She ushered in summer by sitting on the bench as soon as it was 40 degrees and said hello to winter by telling the bench “until we meet again in the spring” as soon as it was 40 degrees again. We added another boy to our pack named Mark and then eventually another boy named Hitchens. She took on the role of mother to our household and the bench took on the role of her throne and refuge.
Days came and went. Days sitting on the porch as a family or sitting with friends. And sometimes just with one or two of us but always Bjork on the bench. We watched storms roll in and sunny days lazily pass by. Conversations were had and sometimes silence was the appropriate companion. We had times of crying and so many times of laughing. We sat on the bench and snuggled which was a favorite pass time for Bjork and us. All while the bench stayed the quiet center of our porch and much of our life.
There was one time, however, when the bench was not quite so quiet. We had adopted Hitchens when he was about 6 months old. He was a quiet little guy who eventually turned into a goofy big guy. Unlike Mark he followed Bjork’s love of the bench. When she was not using it or allowed him to sit with her, there he would be. One early spring day it was warm and I left the door between the house and porch open. I wanted to let the fresh air in and let the dogs be on the porch if they wanted. Hitchens had only been with us for a couple of months but he headed out to the bench right away. I was busy in the kitchen cleaning when I heard a series of chilling screams coming from the front of the house. I have never heard a dog scream before and had no idea what this horrible noise was. All I knew was that I needed to quickly get to the source of the sound. The closer I got to the porch that louder it became. Dashing through the door, I saw Hitchens screaming and thrashing around. He was standing on the ground except for his front left leg was up on the bench. Finally getting close enough, I could see his ankle was stuck in between the iron scroll of the arm and the seat of the bench. He was terrified and jumping around desperate to free himself. With every jerk, he was pulling the bench away from the wall and doing nothing to free himself. I knew I had to stop him from jerking around or he would break his leg. I ran to his side and used my body to hold him still while I tried to get his leg out. Every time I would touch his paw he would bite at me. It was his only defense and he was definitely on the defense. I saw my neighbor walking out to check his mail and screamed for help as loud as I could. He came running up the stairs into the porch and quickly assessed the situation. As I held Hitchens, he was able to unwedge Hitchens’ paw with a few hard pushes and pulls. The minute it came lose Hitchens started to lick my hand where he had tried to bite me. I knew he never meant it and told him so. He went limping in the house where we sat and cuddled for quite some time. We were all shook up. Bjork laid her head on Hitchens and Mark laid next to us. Hitchens leg was banged up and he limped a little for a couple days but nothing was broken or permanently damaged. Hitchens steered clear of the bench for a few weeks but eventually he forgave it. He also got bigger so his paw no longer could get stuck.
Years went by and we aged as did our pack of Goldens. The older Bjork got the more she loved the bench. She spent hours sitting on it looking at the neighborhood that had been her home her whole life. She stopped barking at things but would instead grumble at the kids running past or the squirrel digging a hole or the postman walking by. She would watch and grumble until the task of neighborhood watch would wear her out. You would find her with her eyes closing and her head falling slowly to her chest. With a jerk, she would sit up straight, look around grumbling at nothing until slowly her eyes closed and down her head went. After a few times of this, she would lay down with a deep sigh and stretch out fast asleep on the bench. Her body would take up the whole bench with her legs sticking off the ends. From a certain angle , she looked like she was flying. When awake, she took her job of house protector seriously. As soon she spotted someone approaching the house, she would let out a long howl while also thumping her tail against the bench. It was the epitome of a friendly warning.
Bjork and Hitchens often sat on the bench together watching their world go by. Bjork so she could keep tabs on the neighborhood and Hitchens cause the squirrels were funny. The older they got the more they sat on bench together like two old friends reminiscing about the days gone by. Mark, feeling safer lying on the floor, quietly listened to them. Eventually too many dog years passed and so did Bjork and Hitchens. A dog’s life in years is so short but what they do with those years is so long. They fill one day with more love than most humans do in years if at all. I think the old equation of one dog year equals seven human years is also a true measurement of their years of love. Hitchens passed away of bone cancer and Bjork shortly after of old age. And the bench sat empty becoming an unwitting source of pain.
It was just Mark now. As much as we grieved, his grief was even more as was his loneliness. We had to help him with his grief so along came Dawkins. He charged into a sad household with so much love that we all felt our hearts healing. His intelligence was obvious from the start and he just knew what needed to be done. He loved to play and never walked anywhere. You could hear his happy trotting paws all over the house. He made sure old Mark played and slowly brought Mark around. But our family wasn’t complete. We were missing our girl.
Dessa entered our house with all smiles and giggles. She bowled us all over with her insistence of just how much she loved us and therefore how much we loved her. Dawkins took one look at her and was over the moon. They became and are dog soul mates. Mark by now had aged quite a bit and was our grumpy old man. She didn’t care. She just kissed him all the more. The house went from sad to overflowing with love and joy. The bench,however,sat mostly empty. It wasn’t talked about and was barely glanced at. A remaining testament to what had been. Mark had never been on it and Dawkins had no interest in it. It’s emptiness spoke loudly about the two that were gone. The first summer of having Dessa she was mostly a pup and laid wherever Dawkins was. Our first winter as a full family is passing and it is time to open the doors. Dessa is a one year old with her own personality but with so much of Bjork and Hitchens in her. The front door between the porch and the house is open and the dogs are free to roam between them. Dawkins mostly chooses the house and Mark goes back and forth. Dessa, sweet silly crazy Dessa, has discovered the bench. The role of neighborhood watch has a new queen on the old throne. She loves to sit and watch the people and the birds and the squirrels and sometimes just the clouds. She fills everything with happiness and while Bjork and Hitchens are not forgotten, the happiness instead of the sadness is what is remembered now. And the bench…well it is an active part of my story again. Dessa reopened the closed book and started adding to its story. All from an unchained street bench. These things, these objects, telling the stories of were , the stories of are and the stories that perhaps will be.
