Bonding Beverage
Coffee has been a major part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember. Visiting with my Granny, even as young as age 6, we were allowed to share coffee with her. My cup, a turquoise blue heavy duty Melmac teacup, was half filled with sugar and the remainder of the cup was filled with a warm mixture of cream, which was always canned evaporated milk in my grandparents’ homes and just a splash of hot coffee. Not the healthiest of drinks but oh how we loved to sit around the table with Granny, drinking coffee together and talking away, just like the adults.
Granny was a coffee drinker. She often had several cups a day and she not only had a cup at the beginning of her day, but in winter she frequently had a nighttime cup of re just before she went to bed. She didn’t have central heating, and I expect that the hot coffee gave her courage to face that cold bedroom and kept her warm until her body heat had warmed the heavily quilted bed.
She collected newspaper clippings over the years about the health benefits of drinking coffee and if anyone dared suggest she should perhaps have less, she’d pull out her shoebox of clippings and have you read through them. She also enjoyed plenty of water and she often drank tea, both iced and hot, but her beverage of choice was coffee.
Coffee was always a major part of my adult life. Friends used to come and gather for morning coffee each school day morning, after they’d dropped kids off to school. For one hour each day we’d share, vent, dream, laugh until we ached, cry over our cups of coffee. At the end of the hour we headed off to our own school or workday. It was a season of life I recall often when I’ve reason to feel lonely for a woman to talk to.
When I met my second husband, the first question he asked me was “Do you like coffee?” On the evening of our first date, when all our other plans fell through, we laughed. I made a pot of coffee and offered him a cup. We talked and talked, well into the wee hours of the morning, over cups of coffee. And we’ve never stopped talking.
If we are at odds, one of us will make coffee, and bring the other a cup. It’s not an apology. That may come sooner or later but it is a reminder to each of us that we’re in this together and we’ve many more cups of coffee to share.
After we moved to the land my grandparents settled and farmed in the 1940’s, I lived within easy walking distance to my Granny. Busy with work and home and family, I didn’t always take advantage of her nearness, but one morning, I woke with the realization that I couldn’t let time keep passing without making my relationship with her a priority.
I showed up at her house one morning after dropping the kids at the bus stop. We sat at her dining room table and had coffee and talked. As the daylight broke, we took our refilled cups to the front porch where we sat and watched the glory of the day opening about us. Peace descended upon my restless soul.
It was both the coffee and the company that drew me back to her table every weekday for the next few years. I was blessed beyond measure to have that time with her, to renew my relationship with her. We laughed. We talked about nearly every subject under the sun. We shared books we were reading. She shared the wisdom of years behind her. Some mornings we said very little, sitting quietly and companionably together over our cups of coffee.
By the time Granny was in her early 90’s it was obvious that she had dementia. At first it was a furious anger at imaginary people she claimed had been in her house, or mysterious, unseen children who climbed dangerously high in the trees about her front porch. She hid things in odd places. She was easily agitated. But one thing could calm her.
I’d say, “Granny, don’t you want to have a cup of coffee? I’m sure these strangers will be gone by the time we drink a cup…” and she’d lead the way to the coffee pot that was always plugged in, carefully measure her spoonful of instant coffee into a mug, pour in the hot water and set the can of evaporated milk on the table between us. We’d carry on conversation as normal. The ritual of coffee worked its spell upon her.
Eventually her dementia caused erratic behaviors that made us fearful for her safety. She went into a nursing home. I went to see her, but there was no coffee, seldom even conversation, beyond her saying, “I thought I’d see you today…” We sat quietly together and after an hour or so I’d go home, aching with missing the woman I had come to know so well after years of having her in my life.
There came a day when she no longer knew me. She didn’t greet me or acknowledge me. I confess that visits after that were heartbreaking for me. I didn’t go as often because it left me in such pain.
One morning, I went to see her. She was in a wheelchair by then, to keep her from falling. They rolled her into the room in front of a television set. She glanced at me with blank eyes. Her focus settled on the television. I watched her staring at the screen. A rerun of “The Golden Girls” was on.
The women had gathered in the kitchen about the dining table with cups before them. Rose walked into the room and Blanche picked up the coffee pot. “Coffee, Rose?” Granny’s head snapped around, and she looked at me. I could see that she knew me in that moment.
“I so miss those mornings having coffee with you, Granny,” I said. She nodded. “Me…. too…”
Coffee had reunited us once again, albeit over a cup actors shared on a flat screen.
And just that quickly, her eyes went blank, and she turned back to the tv set. It was the last time she knew me.
I kind of hope there is coffee in heaven.