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J. A. Stroud a.k.a. GlassPoet.
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So, I arose, quickly dressed, thank gawd for that snooze button(!) and met her at the gate. Our first stop was the grocery store. What? You don't stop at the grocery store when you go out for coffee? Hmm, well anyway. We did our usual run down the bread aisle ... hey, if you knew my mother and I, you would find humor at two old broads running down a grocery store aisle, but I digress here. We grabbed the white bread that was on sale and checked out.
Coffee with Mummsie is an experience and an art form. You have to have white bread, the brown just doesn't cut it!
They were just opening the coffee house when we arrived. They too, looked as though sleep had eluded them. Of course, I couldn't find my damn sunglasses that morning and I was lovely as usual. We ordered our coffee and picked a table outside in the freezing morning air.
“I love my mother. I love my mother.” Mantra for the day.
We sat and talked for a bit and waited. Now ... you have to picture this: Two old broads sitting outside, the sun barely up, the moon still in the morning sky. Me in my Winnie the Pooh jacket, Mom in her light wind breaker just sitting there ... waiting.
This little coffee shop is set next to a man-made lake, a tract of homes really, but it's a cool place to hang out and that is what she and I were doing.
We didn't have to wait for long, soon they came and begged for food. We ripped apart the bread and threw it onto the lake. (So, now you understand that trip to the store) We were surrounded by birds and ducks and fish. It's hard to keep up with them all, they are so dang pushy to be fed!
We had finished our coffee and it was my turn to buy, so up the stairs I went, inside the shop and ordered the next round.
Now if any of you are still reading this, I'm glad, because I am getting ready to make the point of it all.
As I stood there, waiting for the milk to be steamed, I glanced around the shop, reading the little sayings painted on the walls. Some were cute, some humorous ... a nice diversion. He handed me the coffees and I placed a tip in the jar and turned to walk out.
As I did, my eyes fell on seven little words, that would mean nothing if they stood alone, but in that sentence ... meant the world to me. They were painted on that brown, wooden wall in a soft yellow color. Nondescript really. Just there.
I was dumbstruck. I literally stopped in my tracks. I said them quietly aloud. Let them roll off my tongue. Tasted the meaning and smiled.
I took my mother her coffee, fed the birds and ducks and fish. Watched the sun rise up, the sky turn red and watched my mother's face light up with joy. Not because the sun had risen, or that the Koi were eating, or even that they had put whipped cream on her Mocha. She was smiling because, she and I were there, together. Enjoying that simple little task, of drinking coffee early in the morning, feeding the creatures and spending time together.
Oh, those seven little words on the wall?
“LIFE IS A GIFT, NOT AN OBLIGATION.”
I was given a gift. I hadn't really seen it that way, not until I read it on a coffee house wall.
*I have been back to that coffee house and try as I might, I cannot find those words. Perhaps they were there, for just that one day ... just for me.