A Cup of Survival Served Cold

Arriving from the airport to my mom’s chilly but quaint, basement apartment, my first thought was that I’d love a cup of steamy, delicious coffee to fuel what I expected would be many hours of catching up. My mom’s superpower was a refined ability to chat for hours pivoting seamlessly between surface-level pleasantries and deep engagement. I think I’m pretty good at this too. I’ve added the ability to create, as needed, a space where people find themselves sharing every intimate detail about their lives with me while I simply share the minimum required so that they don’t reflect back on the visit and feel like they monopolized the conversation. Similar superpowers, different approaches, both easily inheritable and served best in my opinion with a cup of joe. My first choice would be a caramel macchiato, pure indulgence. Second, a breakfast blend with frothed oatmilk, rich and creamy, soothes the soul. I could go on but you get the point and frankly on this day I’d settle for a simple black coffee with a hint of sweetness, my mother’s pantry will have some local honey and that will work just fine.

Around this time, I had started college. I’d been living abroad with my dad and his second family since I was sixteen, with little contact with my mom between annual visits to the States and her rural hometown in Missouri. I’ve never lived in Missouri, but my mom moved there to live near her family after the divorce.

The first year after I moved away and my mom didn’t write or call on my birthday, I admit it stung; but I quickly accepted that international calls were too expensive and snail mail in those days required a trip to the post office—efforts I couldn't expect from her. She could cut out hundreds of tiny, coordinating fabric shapes, in perfect sizes, and sew them together in perfect repeating patterns to create the most beautiful blankets, but popping by the post office for an airmail stamp was an obviously egregious expectation. To this day when someone brings up what I want for my birthday I beg off any need for festivities as I’d rather be pleasantly surprised than unintentionally reminded that it’s not quite the notable day I’d expected.

Mom was a tea drinker - hot, iced, peach and herbal blends. She despised coffee. I knew from past visits that if I dug into the back of the cabinet, I’d find the jar of instant coffee I had purchased on a previous visit years ago. Instant coffee is incredibly resilient—and though it has its own unique, muted smell and taste—it does the trick. Honestly, most of my senses go numb from the moment I land at the Kansas City airport. I have to detach from the present moment to survive the palpable forces bouncing around when we are together.

Coffee is also my anchor. It brings a touch of familiarity when I’m feeling out of sorts, which is how I feel the second I step into her home. My focus on the coffee—finding the jar, boiling the water, the slightly bitter aroma—gives me a necessary break from the intense loneliness that sharing a room with my mother brings.

I take off my coat in the main room of her apartment, which serves as a combined living, dining, and kitchen space. There is a basket full of crafting magazines under the coffee table and a turn of the century secretary desk open and covered with unopened mail. A maple floor lamp with a faded and tasseled lampshade has provided the backdrop for her living space since my earliest memory. Everything has changed over the last half decade and yet the same wooden rocker with the puppy chew marks on the runners remains present to remind me this place and this person have always been a part of me. I hang my coat on a dining chair, interrupting my mom as she rambles on about how she sourced each chair individually to create an "eclectic vibe" for her Amish-style table. It took months, she says, to find the perfect collection. She loves the old-world hobbies: antiquing, quilting, making jam.

I am the opposite. I work hard, and in my free time, I take care of my family and pets. Years ago, I realized I was not given the luxury of a calm enough upbringing to explore interests. Learned "survival mode" is real; my energy is busy scanning every room for peril, observing every person to the point I can typically predict behavior with 95% accuracy. My inaccuracy is so rare I remember each time I’ve been surprised by another person’s unanticipated behavior, always a treat. My husband can verify this talent.

When I open the cabinet to look for my coffee, my mom says there is a pot in the refrigerator. What?

Seems her new boyfriend loves coffee in the morning before he heads out to the sale barn where he works outdoors with livestock all day. He prefers drip to instant. Since he leaves half a pot behind, she told him he could just reheat the leftovers until he finishes the pot, to avoid wasting any. This man’s sacred morning ritual—if you know, you know—before he heads out in the elements to tend to farm animals all day, has been diminished to a cup of reheated, stale leftovers. It is a bitter reminder that my mother does not actually care about his happiness and there will be no daily, morning sunshine in a cup for him.

"Do you hate him?" I ask. "Because this is a totally miserable way for him to start his day." I’m half joking but also not.

She laughs it off. "Oh, don’t be dramatic. He’ll survive."

In that moment, my childhood was summed up. My mother’s goal was always just for everyone else to survive. Even the ones she might love. Creature comforts, hobbies, warmth, energy, birthday wishes—that was all for her. Everyone else? They could just survive.

And by the grace of God, and coffee, I have. I even survived that visit. My granny lived just around the corner and made a fresh pot every morning. I’d start my mornings there.