A SIMPLE SOLID MAPLE DRESSER

I was sitting in my bedroom chair cuddling the cat this morning and admiring the beauty of my small maple dresser.  It has a history.  It once lived in a patient room at the Reddy Memorial Hospital in Montreal.  I think it may date from the 1920's if I remember correctly what Mom told me about it.

Mom was a nurse at the Reddy in the mid-fifties when the hospital admin decided that wood furniture was not as germ-freeable as metal and they disposed of said furniture.  Mom took this dresser.  At the time it had the standard red finish of maple furniture of the period.  When I inherited it I decided to strip the red finish and I am so gald I did.  The grain is so lovely and with a clear finish the warm golden colour of the wood shows to great advantage.  I love this dresser.

It has three drawers and one false top drawer that lifts from the front and folds back to expose a writing desk whose base pulls out to form a generous writing surface.  The back of the space is pigeon holes where stationary and writing instruments can be stored.  I have actually used it that way to write letters and cards to friends.

This dresser evokes memories.  My bedroom in Vancouver all pink and purple and green with a luxurious grape coloured rug.  It really was the "Room of One's Own" that Virginia Wolfe wrote of.  I covered the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark planets and stars.  It is the room where I woke to the news of 911.  Where I fell asleep to Book Time on the CBC.  Where I kept treasured gifts from glassblowing friends and a framed rose embroidered by Mom.  Where I wrote to far away friends and family.  A sanctuary.

The Reddy Memorial is where I had my appendix removed when I was ten.  I don't know how Mom knew something was amiss.  I don't remember feeling any pain or having nausea.  But she took me to the doctor and I was diagnosed with appendicitis and scheduled for surgery.  It was a close call apparently as my appendix burst on the operating table.

Mom was my post-surgery nurse.  In those days a patient wasn't encouraged to get out of bed for at least 24 hours.  For some reason Mom had me up and walking to the bathroom less than 12 hours after my surgery.  It wasn't one of those neat three inch incisions either.  It was six inches long so I had a lot of sutures.  And none of the modern pain killers either.  I remember the pain accutely and I remember crying with the intensity of it.  But instead of the ususal week long hospital stay I was home in four days and running around within a week.

The Reddy is where I was hospitalized when I was 13 for a serious kidney infection.  It was thought that I might have to have it removed.  Fortunately they were able to clear up the infection with what antibiotics were available in 1955.  I remember having to have an intraveous pylogram and in order to prepare for it my bowels had to be cleaned out.  I was supposed to drink some ghastly concoction.  I think it was Epsom Salts.  In any case, I took one tasted and absolutely refused to drink the stuff. No amount of persuasion could change my mind.  So out of revenge, I do believe, the nurse who couldn't get me to drink, instead gave me 9 enemas! She was really annoyed with me.  But truly,  I would still choose 9 enemas over drinking that awful stuff.

I still have both kidneys.  The one that was infected is lumpy and bumpy apparently but every now and again I have to have a kidney function test and so far everything is operating admirably.

The Reddy Memorial is where my first child, Scott Bradley, was born.  I remember the surprising intense discomfort of the labour that was dilating my cervix.  But my membranes would not rupture. The team was worried that Scott would suffer if I didn't allow them to rupture them which I finally agreed to.  Mom was present during the birth and the last thing I remember is her eyes, usually a grey green, being icy blue and peering at me over her surgical mask.

All the memories the desk evokes.  I am definitely getting old.