When I moved out of my parents home, I had a new vacuum cleaner. Everything else was secondhand–bed, dresser, kitchen table, sofa, coffee table, TV, TV stand, side tables, appliances, washer, dryer, refrigerator. And over the years, I’d upgrade to new or better secondhand furniture.

When I moved to my last apartment before getting married, I bought a kitchen table and four chairs from a friend who was moving to California. When I moved in with CS, I reluctantly gave/threw away my junky furniture. I knew that if it didn’t work with CS, I’d have to start over with every last stick of furniture. That was scary.

That table and chairs, though, I could not part with. The table started out in the kitchen and the chairs scattered in the dining area. Then that was too crowded. So the table got moved to the spare room to be used as my sewing table and the chairs went into the attic. But I wasn’t using the table for sewing so the table ended up being stored in the attic, too.

All the while, CS kept asking me to get rid of it. We’d use the set every Christmas Eve. But it seemed a bit excessive to keep for use just one day a year. But I held on to it. Something nagged at me to keep it.

My friend had recently moved back from California and had a nice new kitchen set. She gave no thought to her old table and chairs.

Then Katrina hit. Our home and its contents were fine. My friend lost everything. Except her table and chairs. We gave them back to her. It’s as though I had been storing them especially for her.