Vision of a Happy Life A Memoir

However, as I began to heal from my illness, I simply decided to put off cleaning the closets and wait, hoping John would ultimately see my point of view—that I needed my own things about me. I felt like the character played by actress Maureen O’Hara in the classic movie The Quiet Man, an Irish woman newly married without her dowry of prized linens and glassware, pining for her own possessions.

Two months later, my furniture finally arrived at John’s house because my home had sold—a moving day I will never forget. Dennis was told by his father to take the store’s meat truck and two of the store’s box boys to pick up my belongings: a heavy Spanish eight-chair dining room set and buffet, the boys’ bunkbeds, and a velvet sofa and love seat in delicious fall colors with striking coffee table, end tables and lamps. I felt a small sense of triumph, even though everything was stuffed unceremoniously into the filthy garage.

As to how my things would be moved into the house, well, that was my problem, Dennis said, after the several trips to my home in the San Fernando Valley. He slammed the garage door to emphasize his point.

“I’m not moving my mother’s furniture out of the house,” he muttered under his breath as he climbed into the truck, his gaggle of keys jingling. But he said it just loud enough for me to hear. I felt the well-aimed spear to my heart and when I told John, he just shrugged his shoulders. What was it with the furniture, I wondered? I simply did not understand the attachment despite my attempt to be as open as possible to everyone’s grief. Once again, my aloneness surfaced. I had no one to talk to about this and I wondered if I would ever be accepted in the Stewart family.