Grandpa's Chair

He’d walk in with his strong stride and light bbq smoke scent. With barely a moment through the door, you would hear…“Grandpa’s here!!”

Anytime he visited, you could always count on Grandpa going straight to the armchair in the corner. Always to the same spot, it was as reliable as his goofy jokes.

The family would slowly but surely trickle into the living room and before you knew it, he would be telling a long story to the captive audience. He’d hit about the 10-minute mark, stop suddenly and ask, “Have I told this one before?” We all knew that it didn’t matter if we had before or not, we were still going to listen to it again.

The stories never got old. Even if we had heard them a million times.

He gave advice from that chair.

He told us all about his dog, Patches from that chair.

He reminded us to never settle and always work hard.

He’d make all of us tear up when he talked about meeting Grandma for the first time. He knew she was the one right away. Of course, it took Grandma about a year longer to figure it out.

We always expected the creamy leather would eventually wear out, but it only got softer.

One time when he was admitted to the hospital, we thought about trucking that big ol’ chair to his room. We didn’t know how long he would be there and every single gosh darn seat inside felt like it was built by Lego. He was too sweet to ask for anything but would sometimes throw out “Chairs here kind of hurt your back, don’t they?” We couldn’t wait to get him back to his cozy spot.

To a visitor that chair might have just looked like a beautiful chair chosen to match the room and accent other colors. But to us, it very quickly became an heirloom that would have to stay in our family for years to come.

Maybe it just looks like an armchair to you. But here at Penny Mustard, every chair is chosen like it could be Grandpa’s corner armchair.