Love and a Difference of Opinion

The party was numerous. My grandmother and I went upstairs to get folding chairs.

"They're in the storage room," she instructed.

"With the cool old rocking chair?" I asked, spotting it.

"Oh, that ugly thing," she said.

I was surprised. "You don't like it?"

The wide seat would probably be uncomfortable for just one, since the arm rests are so far apart. Its rounded angles always seemed inviting to me. And I know from personal experience that a child can easily slip between the seat and the arm rest, and that it's a perfect chair for two kids to wiggle onto.

"Maybe I like it because it's always been here," I said. We both looked down the hallway to a matching chair that had been freshened up with some new paint and fabric by my great grandmother, and was sitting where it always had in my grandparents' bedroom. "It's a part of the house, and I grew up with it."

We soon recollected that we had come upstairs for a reason, and fetched the chairs so that everybody else would have someplace to sit.

Later I was thinking about chairs I love and people I love. It’s hard to believe sometimes that the people closest to me could think differently than I do about anything. But just because we love each other doesn't mean we’ll always agree about everything. 

And that’s okay. Just because we don’t agree doesn't mean that we no longer love each other.

It doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree about politics, religion, sports, or an old rocking chair. 

I love my family.

And I always will.