We have all sorts of mugs for drinking hot chocolate and hot tea. We were never much interested in coffee. I had a friend in high school that told me I would never feel grown up and part of the group if I didn’t drink coffee. Well, four years later I met Janet who didn’t like coffee either, which worked out well because she was the only person I wanted to be part of a group with. (Read that sentence a couple of times. Eventually it will make sense, I hope.)
Through the years we have had matching cups, cups with funny sayings on them and cups of all sizes. The small porcelain ones never seemed to hold enough tea to make it worthwhile. One year the kids and I gave Janet a cup shaped like the wicked witch from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. She didn’t drink out of it. She liked to keep it on her office desk as a reminder that no one better mess with her.
And of course our children gave us the obligatory cups with Mom and Dad on them. We gave her one with Janet on it, and a description of her name:
You truly are talented.
You’ve got a flair.
All your undertakings
Receive special care.
You have an affection
For music and art.
Creative projects have a place in your heart.
Whatever your interests
Or talents may be.
You shall reach both
Perfection and mastery.
Now how the maker of that cup knew so much about my wife I don’t know.
For years we always chose to use the cups that had our names and parent title. I don’t know why. We just did. A few days ago I went to the cabinet for a cup, and there it was right in front of me. The Janet cup. All of a sudden I realized it didn’t make any difference, whether it were a Daddy cup, a Mommy cup, a Janet cup or a Jerry cup. Whatever the names on them, they were our cups. They were part of our lives. And they’re still part of my life.
Excuse me while I pause to sip tea from my Janet cup.