The Big Bed

One of my favorite things about getting married was being able to snuggle close and go to sleep, knowing that my husband would be right where I put him when I woke up the next morning. And close is the key word. For the first 7 or 8 years my 6ft 250 pound husband and I slept in a full size bed. It was a hand-me-down from one of our parents, and we had no money, and we really didn't know any better. I put my cedar chest at the foot of the bed, so his feet wouldn't hang off in the air, and we were just fine!
Later, when he was driving 45 miles one way to teach every day and coach basketball every night, and I was working at the university, and Parker was in one school and Hillary in another, we decided something had to give. Our lives needed a change. We both went back to school.
He was getting his master's and I was getting a teaching certification. We both chose accelerated programs that meant going to school year round in order to finish more quickly. We knew it would be tough on our family in the short run, but worth it in the end. But how would we stay connected through it all?
We bought a big bed. A king sized bed. A bed we could all 4 get into on Saturday mornings and spend an hour talking, cuddling, wrestling, watching TV. A bed the kids could sleep in with us when our guilt over being apart overtook us.
And it worked.
We finished our education programs and moved to Cuba where we both got jobs in the same school where the kids attended. For the first few months, we even rode all together. It was heaven! Not only were we in the same town...we were in the same square mile.
Of course, our big bed moved with us. I laugh when I think of the day it was delivered to our old house in Cape, and how it took up most of the small bedroom. I almost cried because it was so big, I thought we would never touch at night and that would be the end of our marriage. (In reality, Yancey just sleeps on MY side of the bed...piling his big leg and all of the covers on top of me). In our new (bigger) house, it fits just fine, and somehow doesn't seem that big after all.
For Christmas, we got a memory foam topper...and suddenly our bed was THE place to be again. Even though the kids are now 16 and 12, they still prefer our bed over their own when it comes to hanging out, watching TV, just relaxing. Parker still comes in during the middle of the night, and sleeps with us til morning, though his visits are getting less and less frequent. And when Hillary comes home from a date, she comes straight to our room (where I'm usually already tucked in, watching TV) and lays beside me and tells me all her stories. Two nights ago, they were both in there, making me laugh with their stories of school and random comments. My normal bed time came and went, but I just couldn't give them up. Yancy kept looking at the clock...realizing that every minute past 10:00 was making his chances slimmer! Finally, they went off to their separate rooms and I turned off the lamp. My husband snuggled close...and I smiled in the dark.