[title subtitle=”words: Jessica Sowards “][/title]
Benjamin, my youngest of five sons, has his own special mug. My morning routine starts with heating the kettle for my pour-over coffee. I drag a barstool over to the stove, and for approximately fifteen minutes, I sit sentry at the counter while water boils then drips slowly through freshly ground coffee beans.
Benjamin wakes up earliest. Probably because he ends up in my bed pretty much every morning. When my alarm screams at 5:50, he begins to stir as well, so I sing him a song until he begins to wiggle a morning dance before he ever opens his eyes. Then we get up and softly step down the hall to the kitchen.
His mug is vintage Corelle with a little brown flower pattern around the rim. It has no sister in my cupboard. When it arrived in a package from an online follower of our social media, Benjamin saw me open the package and reached his tiny three-year-old hand out, saying “That beautiful cup is for me because it’s small and I am small.”
I couldn’t argue.
So, every morning, I brew my coffee, and at the same time, I brew Ben a cup of Rooibos tea in his beautiful mug. This has been our routine for months, and it never before struck me as extraordinary.
Grief arrived at our house on a Friday in September. He came quite abruptly and completely unannounced, just before lunch time. One moment, I was weeding the garden, the next moment I was running next door to my mother-in-law’s house surveying a scene where an ambulance loomed in the driveway and my sweet husband, Miah, stood buckled over beside it, pulling on his hair and shaking his head like maybe his rejection of the thing could make it untrue.
Miah’s mom was a hugely integral part of our lives. Her dying turned everything that was comfortable and normal into ice water, and months later, it still hasn’t quite warmed up. But every morning, Ben and I make our coffee and tea. Every morning he asks for his beautiful mug, and where I didn’t notice before, now I do.
Before September, Grief and I were acquaintances. We’d met casually at the funerals of distant relatives. We had a fling in my early twenties, after the passing of my grandmother. But not like this. This time, Grief came and signed a lease for our spare bedroom. Even with strong faith and the knowledge of eternity, the sadness was like an ocean. And Grief promised to stay until we sailed to the other side, then assured us he’d come back for random visits and holidays. So, we fixed our eyes on our hope, and sailing we went.
When Thanksgiving approached, I knew Grief would go with me to the grocery store, a trip I used to take with Mom. For the first time, my shopping list would include ingredients for scalloped corn and mac-and-cheese and pumpkin rolls. They were her annual contributions, the recipes her kids expected. I knew I’d feel a bit like a trespasser picking them up. But I’d do it. Grief would stand by me the whole time I prepared them. He would belly up to the table and eat with us.
Sometime shortly after she died, Grief’s demented cousin, Fear, came knocking. We all have one relative we don’t want to take responsibility for. I don’t blame Grief for the association. One night, well into the wee hours, Miah found me shaking in the bed. Fear was there, stealing the breath from my lungs with threats that he could take anyone he wanted. He could take Miah too, that he could take any of my boys, and that he could take me. That night Miah prayed, and I decided that I would give Grief his due time to stay, but Fear was being evicted.
Grief is hard to welcome. There was a part of me that wanted to refuse him time in my heart. Part of me wanting to box up the pain and store it in the attic with the Christmas decorations. Part of me wanted to stuff the feeling and run away, to be tough and hard. Part of me wanted to be unbreakable.
I have a friend named G.T. He’s forty years my senior, and God has a way of putting him in my path when I’m coming apart at the seams. G.T. retired from a career in the field of psychology. His soft-spoken demeaner, slightly disheveled hair, and refusal to assert himself to front-and-center, have probably gotten him overlooked more times than one in his life. But he is wise. I’ve often left conversations with him wondering how many times he’s had just the right advice for people at just the right time.
Back in September, as we stood three feet away from a silver coffin that held the body of our beloved mom, G.T. stood by my side and smiled at me. In his soft voice, he said the simplest thing. “Jessica, grieve well.”
Grieve well. When he said it, I thought of sackcloth and ashes. I thought of building altars and making time to let my pain bleed out with fervor, splashing the walls and staining the floors with no regard or apology for the mess it made. But I’ve learned that hosting Grief as a houseguest is not always pain and bleeding. There comes a point where it turns into something you could even call sweet.
My life is full of so many precious little things. There are five boys, who are all so incredibly tender. Among them, there is a three-year-old that calls a mug beautiful and enjoys his morning routine of sitting at the table with his momma. There is a good and kind man that prays for his wife when he finds her crippled by fear. There is a farm that was built with the help of a mom that has gone on to be with Jesus. Before Grief came, I had a tendency to get busy and lose my awe of the details. But not now. Her dying has somehow, miraculously, made me more alive.
The shock has worn off now, and though sometimes I’m still taken aback by the fact that she’s gone, the pain has turned from a stabbing shock to something like a dull ache. My hope in eternity is more comforting than it was when we first started sailing the ocean. I can almost see a new normal forming. The new normal has a void that’s shaped like her and will never be filled. But it also has an appreciation for the little details, for the little moments with a boy and a beautiful mug. And it has a lesson I’ve learned and will never forget. Grieve well.
