Tea for One

I had my tea alone this morning.   Sherry continued to sleep as I stretched satisfying stretches in the recliner as I took my waking slow.  I went into the kitchen, put fresh water in the tea kettle, put a tea bag in my cup, and cradled my face in my hands to catch the grief erupting from my core.  I didn’t want tea alone.  It wasn’t a matter of no one else being there, it was that Sherry was there, asleep, and my mind wandered ahead of itself to a bleak future where Sherry’s breaths would be no more.  

I brewed the tea, stirred in some sugar followed by some cream.  Sherry had converted me to drinking white tea.  It is soothing.  I wanted some of that.  

I came back to sit in the recliner to sip my tea and to think as the day lightened to somber gray and the deck outside our window next to the pond was glazed by the gentle rain.  I realized that this journey I was travelling with Sherry traversed a high, sharp edge.  I am vulnerable.  My receptors are hyper sensitive; mundane, everyday awareness is severed, my heart is broken open. 

I am not angry.  I do not blame God for this.  I don’t see how anyone could worship, let alone love, a god that delighted, like a cat with a fresh mouse, in such events.   I believe that the shortcomings rest in my inability to understand, to comprehend patterns beyond comprehension.  I am sad.  The eyes looking back at me in the mirror bear deep sorrow.  I believe there are no deals to be cut here; that my job is to embrace, accept, learn, and grow.

I am changed forever.  How this change manifests will take time and reflection to sort out.  My hope is that I will be worthy of the great love I have received.  I don’t think I could sustain this heightened state day to day, but I hope I will be able to be a better lover—a lover of people, a lover of place, a lover of justice, a lover of peace.

Maybe I will come to the place where I know that I can never really have my tea alone.