Letting Go of the Sentimental but Not Very Comfortable Couch

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/style/letting-go-of-the-sentimental-but-uncomfortable-couch.html

Version 0 of 1.

In my family, the old saying “The shoemaker’s daughter goes barefoot” had special meaning. My mother and father manufactured high-fashion women’s shoes sold in Bloomingdale’s and Saks, while I opted to wear construction boots or clogs on most days.

Years later, in my own house, I adapted a new version of that adage: “The furniture maker’s wife sits on the floor.”

My husband, Michael, designed modern furniture, especially chairs. They were featured in magazines and sold to trendy restaurants, yet our living room had few of them. We ended up with yard sale finds because so often other people, cash in hand, got first dibs on his best work.

We got prototypes like the wobbly side table base; the green chair that was, on second thought, better in orange; and the bookshelf that was stained only on the front, because that’s what showed.

When Michael died from a risky cancer treatment at 52, I was grateful that my garage was loaded with his irreplaceable inventory.

“Limited edition” does not begin to describe these treasures to my two sons and me. We’ll never part with the dining table Michael made with a dark aubergine finish that initially splintered, and he recoated twice. We’ve held on to our surfboard-size acid green coffee table that appeared in The New York Times Home section too, figuring we’ll fit it somewhere, someday.

But when I listed my New Jersey house for sale eight years after my husband’s death, I needed to consider, or confront, each of the many furniture designs I own. I was condensing for apartment life, moving in with the man I had been dating for a few years.

And so it was the KonMari method, writ large. But it ran far deeper than just determining what gives me joy — my sons’ future joy needed to be considered, too. I was powerless to give them back the father they would miss all their lives. Should I hang on to the objects in his place?

I made sure each of them, now in their 20s, would one day receive a set of at least four chairs. And they’ll have side tables galore. I know they will be able to decide between them who gets what among the one-of-a kind designs.

And then there was the S-curve couch.

When my mother, 5-foot-3, used to sit on it, her feet dangled above the rug like Alice perched in Wonderland. The mustard yellow fabric, a rich lotus blossom, is insanely impractical. Michael said he was going to lower the slightly awkward and stiff back. I am sure he would have gotten to it, eventually.

This couch is not a place where you would want to watch Netflix or even spend hours reading. It’s pretty cool to look at, striking and modern. But in the form and function equation, it kind of adds up to a fail.

Which is not a word to readily use for the legacy of loved ones who have died. But while time does its infamous healing, and blunts the sharpest daggers of grief, it also can offer a practical reality check.

Packing up the house and making our choices, we opted to leave behind a playroom cabinet he had designed for the boys’ books and games; it worked best in situ. We gave away store-bought pieces and secondhand stuff, and tenderly wrapped up everything else of Michael’s.

I cried hard when the scrap metal truck left the driveway with two dozen steel bar stool bases that lacked seats. He’d want me to recycle, I had told myself. The four stools that have tops and bottoms are in my kitchen now.

But did we really need to save that couch?

One of my sons wants me to save it indefinitely, and I can understand why. The other is less insistent, yet wants to be supportive of his brother. But I questioned my sons directly. It may not be up to just you, I explained. Can you ever truly imagine meeting a woman who will want Dad’s couch in her living room? She may be out there, but how will you find her?

We all agreed it’s more fun than comfy, and that it would go well, perhaps, in the waiting area of a hair salon. Or it could be the centerpiece of a fashion showroom. In fact, it was designed for exactly that; ours is a copy of a client’s piece produced in a different material for a commercial locale.

This sentimental seating, simply for practicalities, would never make it into the Brooklyn apartment where one son lives four flights up. And it would not even fit into the living room of his older brother’s East Village apartment, where the public hallway is two thirds the width of the upholstered seat.

My boyfriend, I’m grateful to say, deeply admires my husband’s talent and appreciates his work. He was fine living among many of Michael’s designs, but not all. Not the dramatic and rigid sofa. And who can blame him? The couch is full of meaning, but lacking in purpose.

I’ve started to think of its next home. Selling it seems crass. Donating it will not do anyone any favors. It seems to belong somewhere arty. But where is that? How would it get there, and what of its fate beyond? It needs placement, not disposal.

We’re coming to accept the idea it must go. My sons and I have to embrace the knowledge that allowing the couch to leave our lives says nothing of our love for Michael, or our respect for his creativity and art. His playful mix of metals and fabrics, hard and soft materials, current and retro references — these were magical to see. But not everything he did, no matter how inspired and now rare, was a winner destined to outlast him.

I don’t believe this conclusion would insult him. Michael taught furniture design, and would return from each semester’s student critiques energized by the good and just as inspired by projects that needed work. He thrived on the notion that problem solving is the essence of good design.

And so, the large gold couch must go. Michael left us with plenty of chairs and tables, and memories of him more precious than anything we own.

Joan Lebow is a communications consultant who lives in Brooklyn with some, but not all, of her late husband’s furniture.