Coffee

My mom loved coffee.  I really don’t remember a single morning that did not start off with the coffee pot brewing in our house.  When my husband and I got engaged, I remember showing my mother our gift registry.  She was stunned that I had not registered for a coffee maker–I already had one — so she went out and purchased for us a coffee maker that she liked.  After all as she pointed out if she was going to be the one using it when she came to stay with us, it needed to be the one she liked.  When I did mission work in Jamaica, her final words to me every year before I left were the same–“Don’t forget to bring me back coffee.”

But more than her love for coffee, my mother loved coffee mugs and over the years, she accumulated quite a collection.  Some were gifts from friends and family, but many were ones that she had purchased over the years.  I remember many shopping trips with her when she would exclaim “I think I need to buy a new coffee mug today.”  After a discussion about whether or not she really needed a new coffee mug followed by several lengthy conversations about what mug she would purchase, she would go home with her new favorite mug.  Oftentimes this purchase was followed by her questioning me-“Don’t you need a new mug today?”  Which seemed strange to me.  After all, I had plenty coffee mugs in my house and I didn’t really see the reasoning behind adding another.

Sometimes I might splurge and purchase a new travel coffee mug.  Something I could carry with me on my way out the door.  More often than not, I would prepare my coffee just the way I like it in my new favorite to-go cup and then leave said cup on the kitchen counter as I rushed out the door!  When Starbucks opened with a drive-thru in my town, I was ecstatic!  Now I could leave my forgotten to-go cup, and purchase a to-go cup on the road!  Mom also enjoyed Starbucks.  We made many treks from Durham, North Carolina to Atlanta, Georgia with stops every 1 1/2 to 2 hours for our caffeine fix.  A few years ago, we started a crazy Christmas tradition of taking a bus–yes, a bus–and traveling through the night to arrive in NYC around 7 or 8 a.m. and spending one day shopping, seeing the sites, catching a Broadway show, doing all the New York things we loved to do especially at Christmas until 11 p.m. when we would load back on the bus to head home!  There is absolutely no way we could have survived that trip without lots of Starbucks coffee in hand!!  However, when given a choice, she always preferred her mug at home.  To my knowledge, she only owned one travel coffee mug.  One that I purchased for her, but I don’t think she ever used.

I think to her the mugs meant she was taking the time to enjoy the moment.    A to-go cup literally means you are on the go.  A mug is a commitment to stop what you are doing and stay still.  A to-go cup will go wherever you need it to, but a mug is less transportable and is a proclamation that you will not move until you have had your cup of coffee.  In a world where we can easily be overcome by all the busy-ness, taking the time to enjoy coffee from a mug is truly a gift.  My mother was always busy and usually had a list of things to do a mile long, but every day she gave herself that gift.  She might turn on some music or grab a book and sit for awhile enjoying that mug.  When the weather was nice, she might even sit on the deck with her mug and just stop for a moment.  Sometimes she would extend an invitation to join her; sometimes she just used that time to be alone in her thoughts.  When she gave someone a gift of a coffee mug, I think she was also extending to that person that gift of taking time to enjoy the moment.

Today is the day, I dread more than all the others.  It’s so hard to believe that today marks the third anniversary of Mom’s passing.  So much has happened in three years and there are so many things I want to talk to her about.  Not just the big things–the trials and celebrations of every day, the needed advice and guidance I often look for.  Those things I still “talk” to her about every day and sometimes when I am quiet and still, she lets me know she hears me.  I want to talk to her about the mundane things–a book that just came out, a magazine article I just read, which shoes look best with my outfit, all the things I could easily talk about with someone else, but I want to have a conversation with her.  More than anything I just wish I could sit down with her and enjoy that mug of coffee.  Although I can’t be with her, I will honor her today by putting the to-go cup back in the cabinet and slowing down to enjoy my caffeine fix in a coffee mug.  I might even grab my book and sit out on the porch with it.  More than anything, I will take time for me and enjoy that moment and in doing so honor her.  I encourage each of you to take a moment for yourself and take the time to enjoy your coffee (or beverage of choice) from the mug.