Category: Family

Reflections On Coffee

Several nights a week, I go to my parents’ house to have coffee with my dad and my grandmother, who will turn 96 years young next month. At that advanced age, she is definitely not who she used to be. She can carry on a conversation with me only once in a great while, and at times it’s difficult to understand what she is saying. But that’s OK with me. We can still talk about the old days occasionally, and I can vividly remember a lot of things, the way they used to be. To me, it’s reflection. About how great that part of life was and how it can influence what’s to come.

My grandmother operated a restaurant for a good part of her life. Even when she wasn’t working, the preparation of food for her family was a central part of her day. Therefore,  she lived in her kitchen. And when I went to her house (which was often), that’s where I hung out. Not in the TV room, or living room. In the kitchen. At the kitchen table. To get my daily dose of  “Life is precious” (her favorite saying),  and to hear about which saint to pray to when you needed something found, or something done.

And to get the coffee.

There was always a pot of coffee brewing on the stove. No drip pot here, mind you. Always perking in a stainless steel espresso pot, ready to pour when it began to bubble over through the top of the pot. Even on ninety plus degree summer days when I had just finished the three hour task of mowing the vast lawn around my grandparents’ house, there was no offer of a glass of water….

Just a shout across the yard of  “Joey, you want some coffee??”

If the stove did not have coffee brewingcoffee pot on it, there was always a pot of simmering tomato sauce, or boiling spinach, or meatballs in a pan sizzling away in their bed of olive oil—and with it an indescribable scent of a garlic/meat combo wafting through the entire house. I often woke up on a Saturday morning to that aroma, and I can still smell it right now.

Reflection is power, the power of memory. I get a charge out of reflecting on what was in the past, and how it can spur me on to create new memories, with my friends and my family. And what’s more cool than remembering in such detail that you smell the smells and hear the sounds?

Play at the Plate

Among my favorite images of the very brief summers here in the northeast is a baseball in flight, it’s seams rotating against the mid-afternoon sky. That sky is almost a deep, indigo blue, and at times you can see the moon. Barely visible, like a lunar “fog,” but still there. From the proper angle, the ping of an aluminum baseball bat is followed by that ball cutting through dense, humid air, flying past the moon, giving the illusion of a little league rocket ship to the stars.

It is quite a visual, easy to get wrapped up in, easy to momentarily forget the origin of the flying ball: the boy, who has hit the ball, now running toward a makeshift first base. The ball, still in its rotational glory, starts its descent, as the boy makes it easily to first, taking a wide turn at the base.

Landing in the grass, the ball rolls through the thick green blades, slowing to a stop along the fence line of our backyard. By the time I sprint to the fence to pick it up, the boy – with legs churning, navy blue batting helmet wobbling on his head – has rounded second base, headed for third.

I know if I bobble the ball, I have no shot. He will score the run.

I pick up the ball cleanly, and plant my left foot in the grass to start running. His foot touches third base, and he knows he is only a few feet away from another sure score. My speed picks up. I race through the yard, ball in hand. He starts to giggle because he knows I’m close. Only a few feet away.

I stretch out my arm with the ball to apply the tag. Laughter gets louder. He races inches past me, but he has not touched home plate. There is no umpire. Arm at full extension, I reach the ball out….

The best things in life are free. The best memories you make are sometimes the smallest.

There is nothing more important than your family and friends, the people you love.