Packing up the house and making our choices, we opted to leave behind a playroom cabinet he had designed for the boys’ books and games; it worked best in situ. We gave away store-bought pieces and secondhand stuff, and tenderly wrapped up everything else of Michael’s.

I cried hard when the scrap metal truck left the driveway with two dozen steel bar stool bases that lacked seats. He’d want me to recycle, I had told myself. The four stools that have tops and bottoms are in my kitchen now.

But did we really need to save that couch?

One of my sons wants me to save it indefinitely, and I can understand why. The other is less insistent, yet wants to be supportive of his brother. But I questioned my sons directly. It may not be up to just you, I explained. Can you ever truly imagine meeting a woman who will want Dad’s couch in her living room? She may be out there, but how will you find her?

We all agreed it’s more fun than comfy, and that it would go well, perhaps, in the waiting area of a hair salon. Or it could be the centerpiece of a fashion showroom. In fact, it was designed for exactly that; ours is a copy of a client’s piece produced in a different material for a commercial locale.

This sentimental seating, simply for practicalities, would never make it into the Brooklyn apartment where one son lives four flights up. And it would not even fit into the living room of his older brother’s East Village apartment, where the public hallway is two thirds the width of the upholstered seat.

My boyfriend, I’m grateful to say, deeply admires my husband’s talent and appreciates his work. He was fine living among many of Michael’s designs, but not all. Not the dramatic and rigid sofa. And who can blame him? The couch is full of meaning, but lacking in purpose.