It is Saturday morning, and I am the Father of an eleven-year-old. I am also – however indelicate it may sound – the son of a dead man. I don’t say that to depress anyone – or myself, for that matter. He’s been dead for quite a while now. Since I was 15. And that was, well, quite a while ago. A neverending parade of cigarettes. A career in construction around materials that would likely be considered unsafe today. Bad genes. Whatever it was that spawned that one malformed cell that grew into millions and ravaged his lungs, I think about the man every day.
I’m not going to wax poetic over it. He was a guy. At times a good one. At others, not the best. But he was and will forever be my dad. I still miss him.
This morning, I made the coffee. It’s not that rare. I’ll brew up the morning pot of get-up-and-go once or twice a week, and on those mornings, I know my wife rests soundly until the sound of the coffee grinder groans through the house. At which moment, I can clearly see in my mind’s eye, the small but fullest of grins spreading across her face. She knows a hot cup
of coffee is on its way, and the warmth of the covers is hers for just a few minutes extra.
I don’t think my dad ever made the coffee. Let alone brought my mom a cup while she rested for just a few sweet minutes in the comfort of the flannel sheets on a cold winter’s morning. Nope. I don’t think my dad knew the first thing about making coffee. The man built bridges. He could envision and construct structures that will long outlive a pot of coffee, but he only knew what he knew.
I am not my father. I have trouble helping my son construct a lego set of any magnitude. But I can make the coffee. Well, I can now. I say that, because I wasn’t born with this gift. I’ve honed it over years of practice.
When I was about 11 years old, I walked out of the kitchen and into the den where my dad sat alone. “Why don’t you make your old man a cup of coffee?” he asked.
“Um, I’m not sure I…uh,” I mumbled.
“Sure you can. There’s hot water. There’s coffee. Make me a cup,” he said with a smile.
He was right. We had one of those boiling water taps on our sink. And I knew the coffee was in the cabinet next to the stove. But I had seen my mom make coffee by the cup and in one of those percolators that broke down into 18 different pieces whenever she cleaned it. I had about as much as of a chance of putting that thing together as I would have building a bridge. I went back into the kitchen and stood there frozen in my own ignorance. I knew one thing. When my mom made coffee by the cup, she put a teaspoon or two of coffee into a cup, filled the cup with boiling water from the tap and stirred.
I could do that.
And I did exactly that. Coffee, check. Hot water, check. Stir, check. I stirred, and I stirred. The water turned a shade darker. But the coffee grounds only continued to swirl. Two heaping teaspoons of coffee grounds swimming madly through the boiling bathwater of the coffee cup. My mom’s coffee never looked like this.
“How’s the coffee coming?” boomed my father’s voice from the other room.
Sheepishly, I walked to the doorway carrying my ill-fated science experiment. “Um, I don’t think it came out right,” I said to my feet.
“Nah, bring it here,” he said confidently, and with every step across that room I hoped the floating grounds would magically dissolve into their properly filtered state. But the brownish water concoction with softened grounds sinking slowly to the bottom looked even worse by the time I extended it to him.
“Looks great,” he said enthusiastically, taking the cup from me and lifting it straight to his lips for a satisfying taste. “Thanks!”
I was dumbfounded. Why would he do that? I made it wrong. I knew it. He had to know it. Why?
The next day I asked my mom how she made the coffee magically melt into the boiling water from the tap. “Oh, you have to use
instant coffee for that. We’re out of instant.”
I know.
I made the coffee this morning. I’ve had two cups. My wife would never let me touch the coffee beans again if I’d brought her a cup of coffee soup. Never. If I had accidently served up a cup of steaming grounds, I would have thrown the pot out and started over.
For years, I’ve struggled to understand why my father insisted on drinking that cup of coffee. But today I know. I am the father of an 11-year-old.
Every interaction is precious. Every effort, a wonder. Every challenge, an opportunity to grow closer. My dad knew he had asked me for something I had no way of pulling off perfectly. But he stood by me that day. Because it wasn’t about me getting it right the first time. It was about me wanting to get it right the next time. And to keep building until I was my best. Always building.
I’m not my dad. And some – even some of my own family – would argue that that is a very good thing. But I hope that when Jackson, my 11-year-old son, brings me a cup of bitter grounds to swallow some day, I can inspire him in much the same way.
