Have a Cup
I bought the coffee cup early in our marriage, so I’ve had
it, off and on, for at least 40 years.
It has survived two cross-country moves, as well as at least one fairly
local move when we moved from the west side of Green Bay to our home 10 miles
west of town 33 years ago. Thinking of
that, I’m impressed that it is still intact; there isn’t even a chip in it.
I bought the cup from a smalltown wildlife art dealer. It has several timber wolves painted on
it. The cup reminded me of a poem I had
written in my college years called, ‘Brother Wolf’. My wife and I were married only a few years
at the time and I had been using one of the cups from our regular dish set;
this cup was more personal because it reflected a bit of my personality. Now, 40 plus years later, our coffee cup
cupboard is overflowing with ‘personal’ cups that both Michelle and I have
received from children, grandchildren, co-workers, friends and family through
the years; they’re all at least double stacked on the three shelves.
I mentioned that I have owned the cup off an on through the
years. I had ‘lost” the cup several
times. The first time was when my oldest
son, Jacob, traded his little red pickup truck for a family car after his
oldest child was born. I noticed the cup
was missing, but I didn’t bother asking about it. I assumed that it had gotten broken and
whoever did it was hoping that I didn’t make inquiries. I did not.
But one day Jacob had stopped by to get something, I don’t recall
exactly what, that he was now ready to move from our basement to his
apartment. I helped him carry it out,
and when he popped his trunk open I noticed my coffee cup, pushed to the side
of his trunk. “Hey, my cup!” I grabbed it.
Dried coffee still stained the inside of the cup. “Oh, I guess I borrowed it one day and forgot
about it. It’s been riding around in my
trunk since last summer,” Jake said, with a casual shrug of the shoulders.
The cup stayed at home, safely in the cupboard for quite a
few years. I let Jacob use it when he
came to visit, but I made sure that he left it behind. But oner day the cup disappeared for a second
time. Again, I just assumed that its
luck had run out. But then my wife and I
flew out to Colorado to visit Jacob and his family as they had moved just north
of Denver the previous year. The first
morning Jacob made some coffee. He
served mine in my wolf cup. He claimed
that he had no idea of when he had ‘borrowed’ it the second time. I packed it in my suitcase at the end of our
trip and took it back home to Wisconsin.
Jacob, Jammie, and the girls drove home recently to
celebrate Thanksgiving with us. It was
the first time our family had been together for Thanksgiving for six or seven
years. They arrived the Monday evening
before the holiday, and stayed at our house until the Saturday after. On Tuesday morning, I made the coffee. I set the wolf cup on the coffee table next
to Jacob. We had a chuckle over it. While they spent some of their time during
the week visiting other relatives and friends, we got to share some relaxing
time drinking coffee, visiting, and just enjoying the blessing of being
together every morning.
They got up at 3:30 AM on the Saturday morning, so they
could hit the road by 4:00 AM. It’s a 16-hour
drive and they wanted to make it back in one day. I woke up as soon as I heard them all moving
around upstairs. I got up, went to the
kitchen, grabbed the wolf cup and slipped it into the pocket of Jacob’s
jacket. As soon as they had brought all
their luggage downstairs, Jacob grabbed his jacket so he could load up their
vehicle. He noticed the cup right away
of course. He pulled it out, looked at
it, and then smiled at me. I smiled
back. “When you get home, I thought it
would be nice if you would still be able to have a cup of coffee with your dad.”
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
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