The Last Cup

We have a daily routine.  I’ve maintained it for years.  We drink a glass of celery juice to start the day, most mornings anyway.  I’m not perfect ok?  Then we have smoothies.   I put them in glass jars because I like the way they taste in glass.  It’s fresher and feels more authentic to the flavor of what’s in there.  Glass also seems to preserve the juice longer.  

With the celery juice, I make enough for 2 days at a time.  We drink one that day and save the other one for the next day.  That way, I only have to juice every other day.  It’s a perfect routine for me.  My favorite day is the day I have the juice made for me and I wake up to it and don’t have to do any juicing.  It makes me think some angel made my juice for me.  I’m that angel. 

I’ve kept Grant’s cup all this time, over a year.  His cup has moved from his house to our old house, to here at my new house.  I have never taken the sticker off his lid.  How could I?  It’d be like I was throwing his name away, his place away and his cup at the table away.  It felt too big.

 I’d made enough for our whole family for so many years, adjusting the amounts so I had exactly what each person could drink.  I had the ratios perfect.  Grant had a little over 16 oz, me a little under and the older kids 8 oz each with 6 & 4 oz for the two youngest.  I  had it perfectly tailored to our family size according to size.  It took me a while to get that down, having too much sometimes and not enough others.  Now, I’ve had to adjust again after making too much, too many times.  Forgetting we have one less person in our routine now.  So, the kids and I have had to drink more than we wanted or throw it out in the moment.

If it’s celery juice, I’ll drink it.  Easy.  If it’s a smoothie, I’d usually throw it out, it doesn’t stay good for long and is too much for me. The boys, well, it’s not like they’d choose the extra healthiness.  Watching it run down the sink caused me to remember Grant hadn’t been there to drink it.  Oh yeah.  He doesn’t need any, I’d remember again, and again.   Oh that hurts. 

A friend came over one day and all I had in the big ones were the ones with Grant’s name on the caps.  I looked at that.  How would she feel if I gave her the smoothie cup labeled ‘GRANT?’  She knew this was our routine.  She’d know this was usually Grant’s share, like she was taking his, or taking his place.  He was gone, not taking his own place at the table.  I mean how would you feel if you got a cup of something labeled with your friend’s dead husband’s name?  Awkward…

I took the sticker off before I gave it to her.  She smiled and said, “Thanks!”  You’re welcome I said with a smile.  I turned around and looked down at the sticker. The letters I’d been so familiar with for so many years, ‘GRANT’ in all caps.  Facing yet another aspect of the reality that he’d never need another smoothie or celery juice.  His cup was empty.  If I filled it, it would just sit there.  Untouched for the rest of this lifetime if I let it.

I felt like crying as I tossed the sticker in the trash.  It’s like I was throwing him away.  Then I remembered, it’s just a sticky piece of plastic covered paper.  It’s gonna be ok.  I get to choose the meaning.  And though the word GRANT has a lot of meaning to me, I remembered that I get the choice to tie meaning to meaningless things, like a sticker. I can also tie meaning to the things that really matter, like the memories he left, the children he left, the things he left.  We can use that to make our living lives better, not the things he left that we don’t need.

It is ok to throw those away and move forward.  He wouldn’t want me crying over a sticker.  That’s just silly.  I wiped a tear away and turned back to my friend for a hug.  “Thanks for being here,'' I said.   “You’re welcome,” she smiled as she returned the hug, knowing.

Now I am looking at the last cup with his name on it.  I know I’ll take it off right after I take the picture.  I don’t want to look at empty cups anymore, and I don’t want to give them to friends who visit and want a share in our yummy tradition.  I’m in my new house that's still under construction as you can see, just as our lives are.  So, with a new start, it’s time to let go of that old sticker.  I’ve got 5 other stickers to maintain, that will drink the contents of their cups every day. Those cups belong to the living.  That’s us.  Here we are doing it; living, drinking, growing.