Why I Kept a Terrible Mattress for Twenty-Five Years

I don’t mind spending money. I prefer spending it on airline tickets.

My car is fifteen years old. Until this week, my mattress was twenty-five years old. It was a Stearns & Foster Paul bought a few months before he died. He never told me what he paid for it, but judging by today’s prices, I’m glad he didn’t.

The truth is that I never really liked that mattress. It was hard as a rock. Over the years, I buried it under mattress toppers until I forgot what it felt like. But it was the bed we had shared, and replacing it somehow felt like losing a part of him all over again.

Every Presidents’ Day I’d see another mattress sale and think: I really should replace this thing.

Then I’d book another trip. The mattress lost every time.

Eventually it developed a crater where I slept, and I finally adulted. I found another Stearns & Foster at Costco for less than $1,000 and begrudgingly bought it.

A new mattress turned into a full bedroom makeover. Why not? The furniture went to the painter. The bedroom and bath got fresh paint. Closets were cleaned. Drawers were reorganized. To me, it was a project I’d been putting off for years.

To Gabby, it looked like the end of the world.

Monday, I packed the bedroom and bathroom. Tuesday, a mover carried every piece of bedroom furniture out the front door.

Gabby followed every trip.

She looked at me as if to ask, Why is the furniture leaving? Am I leaving too?

By Wednesday the bed was gone. The headboard was gone. The rug was rolled up and carried away.

The saddest part came at bedtime. Gabby walked into the bedroom to put herself to bed, then came back to me anxious and confused. A few minutes later, she tried again.

Her room was gone.

That’s when it hit me.

She wasn’t worried about the furniture.

She thought she might be next.

I don’t know much about Gabby’s life before she came to live with me. I only know she was surrendered because of her owner’s health. Watching her search that empty room, I couldn’t help wondering if she’d lived through something like this before. Furniture disappearing. Strangers carrying things away. Everything familiar leaving through the same front door.

For three nights we attempted to sleep in the guest room.

Actually, I tried to sleep.

Gabby spent three nights negotiating with it.

The bed was much higher than ours. She’d jump onto the ottoman, study the remaining distance like an engineer inspecting a bridge, then quietly climb back down. Apparently, she had decided some risks weren’t worth taking.

She quit bringing me toys. She didn’t ask to play. Instead, she followed me from room to room so closely I nearly tripped over her a dozen times a day.

I kept thinking she was being clingy.

Now I think she was making sure I wasn’t disappearing too.

By Saturday things finally began moving in the right direction.

The new rug arrived first.

Gabby stepped onto it, sniffed every inch, and for the first time all week, her spirits began to lift. It wasn’t her rug, but it was a rug. Something was finally coming back instead of going out the door.

Later that afternoon, Jeremy and Christy assembled the new bed. There still wasn’t much in the room. A rug. A bed. A lamp on a makeshift nightstand.

To me, it looked unfinished. To Gabby, her little world was coming back.

When I called her, she jumped onto the new bed without hesitation. She circled twice, curled up, and went to sleep as if the worst week of her life had never happened.

Watching Gabby fall asleep, I realized we’d both been wrong.

She wasn’t being sent away.

And getting rid of that mattress didn’t take Paul with it.

Turns out, memories don’t sleep in mattresses. They sleep in us.