A cup of grace

When I drink coffee, I nearly always think of my favorite aunt and uncle. Every morning, they would brew a pot of coffee for the two of them, and would each drink several cups. If we had a get-together at their cabin at the lake in the fall, there was nearly always a pot of coffee going for them and for the other uncles and aunts who were fond of it. Nearly all my family drinks it straight up black: no sugar, no cream.

I didn't drink coffee until I was 35 years old. I guess in my mind, it was something the grownups drank, and I wasn't that willing to join the ranks of the grownups yet. Yet for some reason, the spring I turned 35, I started wanting to drink coffee for some reason. Didn't understand it, but a friend at work was willing to help and fixed me a cup with enough cream and sugar to make it palatable. Soon I was having a cup nearly every morning and enjoying it. Of course, I still wasn't a "real woman" in the ranks of my matriarchal family since I wasn't drinking it black, but I figured, hey, I'm nearly a grownup now.

Four months later, my aunt suddenly passed away one morning just after rising. My uncle found her on the way back through the house from the kitchen where he had started the morning coffee. My father came and got me from work and we got to the house just as they were taking her body away. My uncle was stunned and quiet and the discussion swirled around us as to how they were going to go tell my grandmother that her oldest daughter had died. I volunteered to stay with my uncle while they all went, and soon we found ourselves alone in the house. It seemed suddenly echoingly quiet as we stood there in the kitchen. He glanced helplessly around and his eyes fell on the still-full coffeepot. "Do you want a cup of coffee?" he asked. "Yeah," I answered, realizing in a flash the reason for my mysterious craving for coffee over the last four months.

I put sugar in mine, and found milk in the fridge and doctored my coffee, and as we sat there at the table where I had so often spent time with them, not speaking but yet comforting each other, I realized that what I had between my hands was not merely a cup of coffee, but a cup of God's grace.

Strangely enough (or maybe not), shortly thereafter my daily cup of coffee habit disappeared, and was gone completely by the time my uncle followed her to Heaven 9 months later. I still drink coffee occasionally, but for the most part, I find that my coffee drinking was a self-limited expression of God's grace and comfort for my uncle and for me. And even now, when I drink a cup, I not only remember that awful July morning, but all the countless mornings before that, contributing to my store of happy memories of both of them.

Thank you, Lord.