Mother's Rocking Chair

MOTHER’S ROCKING CHAIR

A Story of the Importance, Function, and Identity of the Chair

Adrian L. Varlack Sr. (8/19/25)

My late Mother, Floresa Eglantine Rhymer Varlack (1908-1989), was a praying woman who, during her workday, sang a lot, a lot of hymns I mean. Her favorite prayer spot on Sunday mornings was the upper rocking chair (rocker) in the parlor or sitting room; there was a second rocking chair near the lower door of the partition to the bedroom. There were two windows (one behind each chair) and because these windows were on the southern side of the house, they were called the “south windows,” upper and lower. I do not remember Mother ever praying by the lower rocking chair. Pa, when he was at home, would sometimes sit there. The rocking chairs both had arm rests and the middle back panels were of plaited straw and so were the seats. We loved to sit in those rockers and rock back and forth speedily and violently until sometimes we would almost turn the chair over frontward. Mother didn’t like us to do this, but when we could get away with it, we did! Pa usually sat in the other rocker or in the side chair near the lower bedroom door. In his later years, he would come out of his bedroom in the morning and sit in that chair with the upper door open and the south windows’ louvers raised. He would spend the better part of his waking hours in that chair. He could see most anyone passing in both directions along the road from his perch. Most would wave at him or shout a “hello”, called in our culture, giving the time of day: Good morning; Good day; Good afternoon. Pa would even bring his bedroom utensil (night pail) with him as his legs steadily got weaker but heavier so that his walking was difficult. He would be served his meals there and would retire again to bed between 7 and 8pm. He kept his house phone nearby during the day and for several years we were able to reach him on this during the daytime. But I stray from my Chair story.

Chairs have many stories to tell and memories to share. One of mine is about the night that the Lord saved me at age 14. I wept so much that my two older sisters, Mable and Berenice, one on either side of me and arm in arm, walked me home from the schoolhouse revival. As we got to our house they went on inside. but I paused long enough to toss away a cheap vanity ring I had bought. I liked seeing it on my left second finger, pinkie, as we called it. I removed the ring and threw it as far as I could into the bushes below the kitchen then entered the door. Still weeping, a truly broken young man, I sat in the nearest side chair and cried my wat through to salvation. I remember sitting in that chair until my emotions subsided sufficiently for me to go to bed, not an actual bed, of course. Mother would spread old clothes on the floor beside their bed and that is where we boys slept. It was a wooden floor which at times harbored bedbugs in cracks or where the boards came together. Once we laid down those little critters would emerge and start their blood feed. Most times we could not feel when they bit into us. Mother would hear us scratching during the night, would get up, turn up the kerosene lamp and rescue her boys from the bedbugs. She would use a hair pin and scape it through the cracks or between the boards sometimes leaving a red line as the fully fed bugs died under her onslaught. Night or day, once a mother, always a mother!

Mother’s Sunday morning prayers from the upper rocking chair were notable. I never saw her pray without tears. She wept as she cried out to God thanking Him for His goodness and praying His protection on her husband and children. Oh, if that old rocking chair could only talk—what stories it could tell of Mother’s deep feelings! Of course, we grew up and later moved away for work. There was very little on Anegada to do except to become a fisherman or a farmer. The old house, bought by Dad in 1940 for $240, was now empty except for Mom and Dad. We could no longer hear those fervent prayers. That upper rocking chair is still there but as a silent witness to what had been. Mother died October 13, 1989, a Friday night at about five minutes after midnight. She was buried the same afternoon. Two of her sons, Raphie and Adrian, were among her pall bearers. Her eldest daughter Mable was there when she died and had been helping Pa care for her. Mother was 81 years, 5 months. Our Dad lived on another 16 years until March 16, 2005, when his chair became empty. He was almost 91 having lived 90 years 10½ months. We buried him a week later, March 23rd, alongside Mom. Some 32 family members made it to his home-going.

Chairs, as we speak of them, become vacant in one of three ways: death, the usual occupant dies; by sickness or disability, the usual occupant is no longer able to sit up; and by retirement, when one’s term expires or the person leaves a position of leadership whether appointed, elected or otherwise. The usual phrase is that he or she “has left the chair.” In this latter sense the chair becomes the person who sits in it or the other way round, as in “She’s the chair of the committee” without having to say the suffix word whether person or woman. The word or function of the Chair is also governed by whether the office held is unique (the only one of its kind) or whether there are equals that play the same role. All this is notable! A vacant Chair has certain frightening aspects: its silence; the competencies or otherwise of the person who sat in it; its empty appearance; its quiet beckoning to be sit in again; its unfinished business which sometimes suggests that the previous occupant left before the proper time. These aspects can all bear elucidation, as does the Chair’s unspoken need to be owned! After all, Chairs are meant to be occupied.

Bear with my repetition: The Chair suggests governance, responsibility, accountability, a sense of doing and accomplishing something. There are matters to attend to, decisions to be made, lives to be lived. In ever so many ways there is always work to be done, services to be rendered. Our interactions with other human beings are naturally the way we live this journey that we are on. God made us to have dominion over some of the works of His hands (Psalm 8: 6-8). The idea of ruling, of being in charge, is part of our makeup. God’s opposers, the devil and other angelic rebels, with the gracious freewill granted by our Creator God, decided to initiate a diabolical plan to overthrow Almighty God, and to kill Him. What a preposterous idea! Can anyone kill Infinity? His goodness, grace, and merciful kindness, was too much for them and their selfish, evil designs. They sought an illegitimate exaltation by attempting to demote and to destroy God Himself. Can there be any greater evil? God’s enthronement without equal above the heavens, somehow bothered them. They first lived in the pleasure of His holy Presence but could not be content with their own created status! This was a tragedy of all tragedies, an attempted usurpation of all usurpations!

God’s throne is the “Big Chair” of the universe, of heaven and earth, and all that in them is (1 Chronicles 29: 10-20; Psalm 24:1). God’s great all-encompassing love provided for Him to create in freedom, in order to express the unique and inestimable beauty of His glory and sovereignty. He said to His beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, “Thy throne, O God is forever and ever, and the scepter of Thy kingdom is a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness and hateth wickedness: Therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” (Psalm 110:1; 45: 6, 7). The reference here, confirmed in Hebrews 1: 8, 9, is to our Lord who as both the God-Man and the Man-God, is one with the Father in Godhood, and one with His human brothers and sisters who believe His glorious Gospel. So, in essence, the divine “Big Chair” has now two occupants as Christ Jesus sits at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12) not only as Son of God but as the exalted Son of Man who has been given THE NAME that is above every other name (Philippians 2:5-11). Our Lord is the first truly victorious human being to qualify to be seated at God’s right hand, to share the divine Chair of glory next to the Father! Sin had so far removed us from God our Creator that our minds find it difficult to fathom what this means: A Man who once walked among lowly Galilean fishermen, has been exalted to sit with God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe and of all things. The New Testament writers all understood this; it was the beginning of a new humanity; and, it should be the goal of every fallen human being to become part of this new human race headed by our blessed Lord Jesus. Accordingly, in this sense, we each have a Chair to fill, a Chair like Mother’s, a Chair which represents our rule and reign with our Lord Jesus Christ. As Revelation 20: 6 reads, “Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power; but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” What a prospect! And, a thousand years, in scriptural parlance, represents a very, very long time! This ruling and reigning implies a new and advanced role for all who are Christ’s. All authority and power and dominion in heaven and earth has been given to Him. Sharing with Him in what is His at His pleasure, and by His mercy and grace, has been His desire for us even before He went to the cross (John 17:24-26). Our feeble minds cannot comprehend what Jesus prayed nor what we will witness when we are admitted into His holy Presence! Where God is, where Christ our Lord rules and reigns, can only be the most tranquil, and restful, and important, and Godly place ever! Even as we use the word, place, we are aware that where the eternal God dwells knows no such word for there can be no such legitimate reference to One who is beyond and above location, time, and space, all words of limitation. Frankly, God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ whose Holy Spirit now guides and instructs us, dwell in a reality, a realm that is undefinable. God’s presence is indescribable and is full of inexhaustible pleasurers (Psalm 16:11).

Mother’s Chair was the place where she formally prayed, especially on Sunday mornings. Chairs remind us to pray, that we are not independent or self-dependent. Our breath is in God’s hands as Daniel the prophet said to King Belshazzar long, long ago (Daniel 5: 23). Belshazzar used the power of his chair to defy God and to revel, like the devil, in rebellion and sin. Generally, a chair would suggest a place of rest and safety, an end to a project or task, the ability to perform or act, or an end to life itself. It may also represent as earlier intimated a place or role of authority. But in the tradition of our Lord, a Chair would be a place of service, an opportunity to humbly recognize that those we serve are greater than ourselves and that it is a blessing to be able to serve them. This, of course, is not the world’s usual spin on a Chair, but it is our Lord’s humble depiction of how we should relate and be a blessing to others. This was His way, and it is God’s!

An empty Chair is a place of memories, a place the “Doer or “Lifter” occupied. Lifters and Leaners are who we all basically are. I am a Lifter to others or to those I serve or work with. I know myself as a Leaner, and that Leaner is known only to me. Perhaps my mother knew also. So, each of us jointly embody these two functions: The Lifter is what we do, what we are mostly known as (or for), how we are generally identified by others; the Leaner is who we are, the person known only to ourselves, the person we must live with, and, ultimately, die as! When the lifting (life’s work) is over, we are left with and must live with the Leaner. This is where many older folks fail. When we can no longer fill the Chair, do we find it difficult to live peacefully and quietly with the Leaner that we are? If not, we will be restless, and irritable, and perhaps even miserable. This, of course, would affect others around us and make them uncomfortable and miserable as well. Thank God that those who depend on Him while they are Lifters can finish with minimum or no regrets about their service and move into the Leaner phase of life quietly and restfully. We cannot do things over again. What’s done is done! That’s it until we see our Lord face to face. Mother’s Chair, Dad’s Chair, Our Chair: Your Chair, My Chair, all part of life as we live it! May God help us to fill our Chairs well then to retire in peace and with grace and dignity. “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which you have showed towards His name in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister” (Hebrews 6:10).