The Red Papasan Chair
The first night I held my son to sleep in the red papasan chair was also the night I realized I hadn’t thought about my daughter in a while and missed her terribly.
I kissed my toddler’s forehead after he fell asleep in my arms with little of the usual bedtime struggle, and tears streamed down my face. He had just paid a spontaneous visit to the beach after dinner, where he saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Pacifica, California, was foggy and windy in early June, but the brisk air didn’t deter my son. He was in awe the moment he laid eyes on the ocean. His awe was our poetry.
*
The nights after the D&E, my grieving, aching body sat in that same red papasan chair for solace, no longer carrying my first child—a daughter.
On the third night, she visited us. My husband was leaning on the doorframe, a poignant piano solo playing on his phone. I was curled up in the papasan chair when I spotted a tiny, translucent figure—a little flying soul that my mind’s eye beheld and traced. She landed on my chest, hugged me, and kissed my cheeks. Then, she floated up to my husband’s left shoulder, and kissed his cheek gently as he wept. She seemed like a dancing spirit as music played, and vanished soon after music ended.
A few more nights passed, and I saw her again. She sat next to my husband as he improvised a melancholic tune on the piano. That was the last time she ever entered my vision, even though she never stopped communicating.
*
The red papasan chair seemed comically large when we picked it up from the Craigslist seller. Newly pregnant with our first child, rootless and anxious in the new apartment we had just moved into, I heeded my therapist’s advice and sought out any object of comfort to fill a small breakfast nook.
“You can designate a particular area in the new place to call it your own. Make it comfortable and welcoming, a new home,” she proposed.
Years ago at a friend’s house party, I had my first encounter with a papasan chair. Captivated by its bowl-shaped frame and a fluffy throw blanket on top, everyone took turns sinking into it. My friend’s papasan chair offered such outsized comfort that it made a distinct impression on me back then, and was the first thing that came to mind following my therapist’s advice now.
The red papasan chair’s previous owner happened to reside in the same neighborhood that I called home for my first four years in San Francisco. An old stomping ground of my wide-eyed singledom, Cole Valley’s charm never faded even years after I moved away, got married, and planned to have children. Returning to Cole Valley for the papasan chair felt like receiving a surprise gift from the old home to the new.
A gorgeous, long-haired Retriever bolted out of the door. The owner followed with the papasan chair in one hand, and a large red velvet cushion for the frame in the other. My first-trimester fatigue momentarily receded as I energetically petted the dog, while my husband greeted the owner.
Once the owner set up the chair for us to try, I crawled into its massive plush cushion, and my fatigue returned. The Retriever jumped into the chair and immediately snuggled up, as if to protect me. Surrounded by softness, my daughter and I were held by not one but two gentle giants.
The full-grown pup then bounced up to put her paws on my shoulders. She zealously moved about my body, shedding a large amount of fur all over the cushion. But I didn’t mind. I treasured any moment of pure joy amidst the daunting prospect of becoming a first-time parent.
“She never does this!” The owner exclaimed, puzzled. “She’s usually kind of indifferent toward other people.”
He didn’t know I was pregnant, but she did. I didn’t have a bump yet, but perhaps she smelled the altered hormones of a pregnant body. Looking back, I wonder: Did she also intuit that I was pregnant with a baby who was very sick, something that nobody knew about at the time?
We walked away from the transaction with our hands full and our hearts warmed. The papasan chair filled the small breakfast nook with its larger-than-life presence, but not in an intimidating way. I lounged in that chair often while pregnant with my girl, singing songs from Sesame Street with my husband, reading books to our baby, and shedding tears. The chair carried me as I carried my daughter, even for just four months.
*
The first night I held my son to sleep in the red papasan chair, “Burn incense” popped up as a calendar alert on my phone. Inside a snug sleepsack, my boy also happened to wear his “Little Brother” onesie to sleep. It had been almost exactly three years since I had found out I was pregnant with my daughter.
My daughter was telling me something. She never stopped visiting or watching over us, even as baby care and postpartum anxiety left little space for us to grieve. She might have been the one casting a magic spell that gently guided her little brother to the ocean, and then to dreamland after almost a year of sleep woes. She planted a seed in my mind, a promise to both of my children that I’d hold my son to sleep in the red papasan chair for as long as he allowed. In a way, I’d be holding my daughter too.
About the Author
Ruika Lin is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer. She runs Fieldnotes from a Watcher, a monthly literary journal that explores stories across generations, cultures, and the arts. Born and raised in China, she moved to the U.S. in 2007, and now writes primarily in English.
