Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

coffee

I gave away my coffee

I gave my coffee away again today.

When I go to the city, I almost can’t help myself, but to be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about that when I bought the coffee.

Photo by Tamara Bellis on Unsplash

My son and I had a rare morning just the two of us while my daughter was at a school practice. We made our usual Saturday trip to the library to pick up a couple of books and then I promised him a treat for helping with the snow shoveling the past two days.

“I want to go to Prince Street,” he said. Music to my ears. (I miss coffee shops, although it is nice to have a job that helps pay for the trips to the coffee shops, even if I have less time to visit the coffee shops. The struggle is real.)

It was the morning after a second hit of snow in as many days. Most of the sidewalks were clear, but the air was chilly, and the city is busy on Saturdays. Which often means more people on the streets–both in the pedestrian sense and in the homeless or panhandling sense. You see the evidence in the backpacks slung over shoulders and the worn winter wear on their bodies. One woman started coughing as we passed. I’ve seen her before, and I wondered if the cough was timed for our passing or just a coincidence. Sometimes, my heart is still so cold.

If I spend too much time thinking about the suffering I see or sense in the city, I become overwhelmed and almost paralyzed by the enormity of problems. I cannot do anything, I think, to fix this (whatever “this” might be). I rarely carry cash, so I can’t even help with a request, and the city has been discouraging open panhandling anyway. I don’t know what the answer is but I know I want to keep my heart more on the side of soft and open than on hard and closed.

We stopped in at market to see my husband and just say “hi” then made our way to the cafe. It was a bit crowded, so we decided to take our food and drink to go. We left with a coffee, a hot chocolate and two Nutella cookie sandwiches. My son held the cookies and I held the drinks. Every coffee shop we had passed in the city was full. I’m rarely in the city on Saturday mornings, so maybe this is normal. On the route back to where I’d parked the car, I saw a man I’d seen before, holding a sign.

“Homeless. God Bless.” As we passed, my right hand, the one holding the coffee, lifted almost on its own.

“Could you use a coffee?” I said as he took the cup I offered. My son and I had only paused, and the man looked at me and said “Thank you, darlin’.” It is the same every time. I have given this man a cup of coffee more than once. (The last time was not recent.) He is always in the same spot and we always say the same things, and I never miss the coffee I gave up.

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash

It solves nothing, really, except that it makes me more aware of my own humanity. I give up my coffee to keep my heart soft and to communicate to another human being that they are worth at least as much as a hot cup of (good) coffee. The price of not sharing my coffee is higher than what I paid for the cup of coffee.

It was almost easy and instantaneous this time, but only because my soul has practiced this particular action. Sharing what I have, even when it isn’t a lot, or when I don’t have any money, is a skill, in a way. I had to do it once so that I didn’t have the excuse of “I could never do that” and then I had to do it again to make sure I believed that it was something I could repeat. Any new skill takes practice and is awkward and clumsy at first. Only with practice do we improve. We might never be pros but we also won’t be beginners.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Practice has become a word I can’t escape lately. If I want to have a life that looks like Jesus, I have to practice. It’s not going to be like a magic spell that turns Cinderella into a princess. If I want to be kind, I have to practice. If I want to be generous, I have to practice. If I want to serve others, I have to practice. If I want to love, I have to practice.

Practice. And repeat. Until it is almost second-nature.

Sometimes that practice looks like doing something I don’t really “feel” like doing. I could have talked myself out of giving away that cup of coffee, but I knew I still had coffee at home. And that man might not be welcome to walk into a coffee shop and order his own coffee.

This action was easier than others. I still have many ways in which I need to practice what I believe.

I gave away my coffee today, and I tell you about it because I believe you can, too.

We all have a list of excuses and reasons why we can’t get involved in someone’s life or why the problems of the world are too big, but I am naive enough (okay, make that hopeful enough) to believe that small actions can make a difference, even if the difference they make is only in me.

Except that I know that they are making a difference in someone else, too.

After I handed my coffee to the man, my son patted me on the back and said, “Good job, Mommy.” (He also wanted to make sure I had given him the coffee and not the hot chocolate. Baby steps!)

What makes a difference in us will often be visible to those close to us. And maybe it will make a difference in them, too.

Just a cup of coffee

Jeremy Ricketts via Unsplash

It was just a cup of coffee.

And it wasn’t.

It was more.

I met her an hour earlier

as I pulled into the drive,

rang the doorbell at the wrong apartment,

found the right apartment,

and yelled her name to her husband

who had poked his head out of the upstairs window.

She was covered from head to toe

as I expected for a woman from Syria.

She smiled. A lot.

I tried to make conversation. She handed me her phone.

As I drove, I asked the phone, “How many children do you have?”

She answered. I told her about my children.

We arrived at the appointment. And waited.

Her sister called by video and there, in the waiting room,

I waved to a woman living in Libya.

After the appointment, we drove back to her house.

I approached the driveway, clogged with cars now.

“Cafe? Cafe? Cafe?” she asked.

“Yes!” I said. As soon as I parked the car.

She hurried inside. The other cars moved. Her husband guided me as I parked.

They invited me in. He told me his name. I told him mine.

I sat on the couch, waiting. We smiled. Said a few things in simple English.

When she came down to invite me upstairs, I did not recognize her.

Gone was the covering she had worn outside the house.

She was like any other woman I might meet.

Upstairs, I sat in the kitchen as the coffee simmered on the stove.

“Sugar?” she asked.

“A little,” I said.

She served us coffee, me and her, in flowery tea cups with saucers.

It tasted sweet, like milk and sugar.

“Babies?” the husband asked me.

“Two,” I replied, telling their ages.

They told me their kids’ ages.

He told me his wife is a hairdresser.

She gestured at her eyebrows, showing me what else she does.

I am constantly surprised by my new friends.

We talked about family. The sister in Libya. Two more still in Syria.

A shadow crossed her face. I did not have to ask. I could not ask.

Her husband said they had gone to Turkey. Then New York. Then here.

Here, in this home, for only two months.

I showed them a picture of my children.

I told them my brother lived in Chicago. I showed them on a map.

Our conversation was simple. I wanted to stay.

I had to leave.

On my way out, they pointed to the bedroom, where one of their boys slept.

I saw him, the little boy in the bed.

And his face reminded me of the other boys I’ve seen.

The boy on the boat. The boy on the beach. The boys in bombed-out buildings.

This boy, he sleeps in a bed in an apartment in an ordinary city.

Will he remember what his life could have been?

What will his life be now?

It was just a cup of coffee.

I drink a lot of coffee.

Somehow, I think, I won’t forget this one.