The Theme of Letting Go and Grief in It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway

Defining the Thematic Claim

In It Was an Ugly Couch Anyway, Elizabeth Passarella presents letting go not as a single decisive act but as an ongoing, messy negotiation between memory, identity, and control. The memoir’s central claim is that grief often compels us to cling to material objects, family stories, and routines—even when they no longer serve us. Releasing these attachments requires not just physical removal but also a willingness to rewrite the narratives we have built around the people and places we have lost. The book traces this struggle across the sale of her father’s iconic couch, her husband Michael’s mysterious health crises, and the acquisition of a hoarder’s apartment, each episode revealing a different layer of loss and the slow work of letting go.

The Ugly Couch: Keeping the Fabric, Releasing the Frame

The most tangible symbol of grief in the memoir is the nine-foot plaid velour couch that Elizabeth’s father purchased in 1968. After his death in 2019, the couch becomes an emotional stand-in for her father. Despite its worn condition and an upholstery quote of $5,000, Elizabeth cannot bear to throw it away. Her real estate agent insists it must go for the apartment to sell, triggering a desperate act: she “skins” the couch, cutting the velour fabric off the frame in sheets and stuffing the scraps into a trash bag. She keeps the fabric, separating the material memory from the functional object. This act encapsulates the thematic claim—she lets go of the bulky frame but refuses to release the tactile connection to her father. Even after the couch is sawed in half on the curb, she acknowledges that the bag of velour still haunts her closet, awaiting “resurrection.” The couch episode demonstrates that grieving people often compromise: they give up the form but preserve the essence, hoping that a piece of the loved one can be saved from complete loss.

Michael’s Health Crisis: Letting Go of Certainty

Parallel to the couch, Elizabeth faces a different kind of letting go when Michael experiences a series of fainting episodes beginning in 2020, eventually diagnosed as vasovagal syncope. The illness has no clear trigger or certain cure, and Elizabeth’s instinct is to control the situation—researching doctors, monitoring symptoms, demanding answers. She admits, “I grapple with the lack of clear medical answers and my desire for control.” The chapter “What Doesn’t Kill You” traces her struggle to accept that health outcomes, like death, are unpredictable. Michael undergoes a cardiac ablation, a procedure that reduces but does not eliminate his episodes. Elizabeth concludes that certainty is elusive and that she must “appreciate each day with Michael” rather than trying to prevent every future threat. This letting go is not about a physical object but about the illusion of control. Grief here is anticipatory: the fear of losing Michael forces her to release the belief that she can shield her family from harm. She cannot skin this fear and save a scrap; she must learn to live with the whole, vulnerable frame.

Lois’s Apartment: Letting Go of the Overwhelming

The epilogue introduces Lois, the widow selling the Passarellas’ dream apartment. Her husband had hoarded decades of clutter: medical equipment, old passports, unopened wrist braces, and countless small items. Elizabeth expects Lois to resist parting with her husband’s belongings. Instead, Lois walks through the apartment, declines everything except a small ceramic camel—a keepsake from her husband’s time in Egypt. She says, “This is all I’m taking. Just to remember him by.” Lois embodies the opposite end of the letting-go spectrum from Elizabeth. Where Elizabeth hoards velour scraps, Lois reduces an entire life’s accumulation to one object that fits in a rolling cart. Elizabeth reflects, “You keep what you can carry, and you make it enough.” The camel becomes a counter-symbol: grief does not require us to keep everything; it asks us to curate what truly holds meaning. This encounter challenges Elizabeth’s own relationship with letting go. She sees that releasing the bulk of a loved one’s possessions can be an act of love, not betrayal.

Complexity: Grief, Control, and Contradiction

The memoir resists a simple arc of “learning to let go.” Elizabeth acknowledges that she is “quick and ruthless” at decluttering clothes and toys, yet the couch “haunts” her. She admits in the chapter “Staying Put” that she lied about how well her family coped during the pandemic; she struggled to accept help from neighbors and felt furious at friends who left the city. Her stubbornness—a burrowing-owl tendency to dig in—makes letting go especially hard. At the same time, she shows up for funerals, traveling with a newborn to Hallie’s father’s service, because she understands that presence is “the adhesive that keeps relationships strong.” The chapter “Funerals are the New Girls’ Trips” reframes grief as a communal event. Letting go of inconvenience and expense in order to attend a funeral becomes a form of honoring loss. The contradiction is that Elizabeth both resists and embraces release: she cannot part with the fabric, but she can spend money and time to mourn with friends. This tension mirrors real grief, which is never consistent.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Elizabeth choose to skin the couch instead of reupholstering or donating it?
She wants to preserve the velour fabric because it carries direct sensory memories of her father—its softness, its history. Reupholstering would erase the tactile connection for a memory that felt diminished. Skinning lets her keep the essence of the couch without the burden of its frame.

2. How does Michael’s health crisis illustrate a different kind of letting go than the couch episode?
The couch involves letting go of a physical object; Michael’s episodes force Elizabeth to let go of the need for certainty and control. She cannot “skin” the illness or keep a token of safety; she must accept unpredictability and the limits of her ability to protect him.

3. What does Lois’s decision to keep only the ceramic camel reveal about grief?
It shows that meaningful memorialization does not require holding onto everything. Lois selects one object that symbolizes her husband’s identity (his Egyptian connection) and releases the rest, suggesting that letting go of overwhelming possessions can be an act of clarity rather than betrayal.

4. In what ways does the memoir complicate the idea that “letting go” is a linear process?
Elizabeth keeps the fabric scraps indefinitely, never fully deciding what to do with them. She also acknowledges her stubbornness during the pandemic and her inability to accept help. The book’s structure—moving from the couch to health crises to the apartment—shows that letting go recurs across different contexts and never feels finished.

5. How do funerals function as a form of letting go in the memoir?
Attending funerals requires Elizabeth to release time, money, and comfort to be present for others. It reframes letting go as a social and reciprocal act: she gives up convenience to show up, which in turn strengthens the friendships that help her endure her own grief.