He claimed it was love at first sight. It might have been the
caffeine.
Nothing characterized our life together quite like coffee.
We dated over steaming cups, placed on Formica tabletops in out of the way
cafes. Two cups, and maybe one piece of pie to share, purchased hours of time
to talk and all the coffee we could stomach. One conspirator of love, a
waitress at the Olde North Pancake House, always let us linger for the hour
after she locked the doors.
Our conversations went deeper than the bottomless pots of
unlimited refills. Tendrils of steam may have blurred our eyes, but they did
not keep us from seeing clearly into each other’s hearts. The intoxicating
aroma, invigorating taste and comforting warmth formed the brew into which we
stirred the entwining of our lives.
A Farberware percolator topped our registry list. Our
honeymoon morning began with a silver carafe, delivered on a linen covered cart.
Every morning after, our marriage awoke to eight cups of brew, the first cup
brought to me in bed. Over a fresh pot in the afternoon, we discussed our day.
We made the final one to temper the sweetness of dessert.
“No more caffeine,” the dietician explained in an effort to
protect George’s heart. She actually yelled at me when I brought a latte to his
hospital bed—although I yelled back, “It’s decaf.” Making nearly simultaneous
cups—decaf for him and regular for me—was so integral to our existence, we added
a Keurig coffee maker to our collection that includes a ten-cup drip pot for
every day, a four cup pot for the camper, a thirty cup pot for parties and a
stove top model in the event of an electric failure.
It should be no surprise that I drink too much coffee these
days. I do it for my heart. Now that I know I’m prone to find my solace in a
cup, I can appreciate the no-alcohol pledge of the college we attended. If our
lives had been stirred together in steins or goblets in smoky bars, this story
would have a sorrier ending.
#noaprilfool
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