I’ve made lots of friends through my love of coffee. I’ve even met some relatively famous people in coffee shops. But there’s one special friendship that was formed over coffee that I will always cherish.
When I started a new job about 12 years ago, me and a woman who started at the company around the same time, I’ll call her “Cindy,” began to take our morning coffee breaks together. We would go downstairs to Starbucks around the same time each day. We would
sit on the benches outside and chat about our bosses, our jobs, new clothes, new cars, new furniture, the night before, the weekend before, our families and any and everything we could fit into fifteen minutes.
We were exactly the same age (actually she was six months younger and never let me forget it), but came from very different backgrounds. She’d grown up in a small farm town. I’m an urban girl. Over the course of the five years we worked together, I can’t
count the number of cups of coffee we shared. Oh, sure there were lunches too, but something about that connection of the cups really cemented our friendship.
When Cindy found out her cancer, which had been in remission for several years, had returned, it was over coffee that she shared the bad news. Cindy was a real trooper. She continued to work and when she had to take time off for treatment, sometimes for months, she would always return to work. And we’d resume our coffee breaks.
We’d talk about how her hair had fallen out and what cute new wigs she had found. And how she was never going to give up. And I would assure her that if anyone could beat it, she could.
To this day, when I walk down the hill to catch my evening train, I pass the spot where we first sat and sipped. I still miss her – more than five years later. I’ll never pass that spot without thinking of Cindy and how our friendship developed.
I wonder if you get to drink coffee in heaven?
Dorothy Stewart is a freelance writer who lives in the SF Bay Area and blogs about coffee at perkdup.blogspot.com.
Rachel
What a touching story. I think there is everything we love in heaven. Coffee included.