Hot strong coffee was a staple at family gatherings. Some people preferred to stir in thick farm cream. Often it was splashed into the saucer so it could be drunk without danger of a scalded mouth (for how is it possible to “spatzea” (visit) when one’s mouth is sore? I remember well sitting at Grandpa and Grandma’s dining room table, the one we now use at our house, getting my first taste of coffee from a saucer.
It wasn’t until I moved into a dormitory and took my meals with my fellow students at Bible school that I had personal experience with coffee kettles. We all had to take turns serving our fellow students. Those large kettles are heavy when they are full! One day I switched my large kettle for a slightly smaller one. I explained the heavy pot hurt my wrists. A snort of derision and a cryptic denunciation of my weakling status hurtled my way. I guess I didn’t fit Cook’s idea of a good Mennonite girl. I had no fondness for the kettles I carried.
About six or seven years later, married by then, my husband and I began to explore the country acreage that was our new home. The property was half a mile deep, but narrow. A trail angled from one corner at the roadside to the other corner at the back of the property. There we found what turned out to be a garbage heap. As we poked around a bit, we found various household items, including a like-new pastry blender. That, and these two kettles came back to the house. Only one of them had a lid, but that didn’t matter. I cleaned them and spray painted them.
It’s more than 40 years since these pots were repurposed. They moved with us when we left that narrow lot for a building site, and again when we left the country for a smaller place in town.
Now they contain another memory. Even when my family had hardly any money for the basics of life, my mom planted her beloved begonias in the bare dirt behind our rental house. I’m sure she had brought the tubers from the garden at our previous house (also a rental). The vibrant red flowers looked magnificent against the darkly weathered bare boards of the two-storey house. Springtime is not too far away. Nights, and some days, too are still chilly in March but I choose to focus on what is to come. Seedtime and harvest will continue as long as God deems we need them. So, I’ll plant flowers in these pots again, Lord willing, to bring cheer, to remember my parents, and to remind me to forward to what God has in store for His children!
Mom and Dad both loved their coffee, too. Although they died many years ago, I often think of my parents as I sip my coffee while enjoying our backyard. These battered old kettles remind me one can serve up refreshing and beauty if one is willing to receive it first from God. I’ll take a cup. Will you?
patgwriter 