Two of my earliest memories of growing up in Minnesota were being so cold, my teeth wouldn't stop chattering and the strongest coffee I have ever had in my life, Lutheran Coffee.
It's so cold in Minnesota that everyone plugs their car in at night so that an engine block heater will keep the engine fluids and the motor itself from freezing in sub zero temps. Even with that, Dad would always go start the car and turn on the heater so both could warm up before we all piled in to go to church. We wore layers and layers of clothes ... long johns, jeans, sometimes a second pair of jeans and snow pants too, a shirt, turtle neck, sweatshirt, two or three scarves, our coat, hats, gloves or mittens and most times, both! Almost always, one of the little kids would have to go to the bathroom just as soon as they hit the cold weather, so Mom would have to help them undress enough to go to the bathroom and then, the whole process would start over again. Even with double socks and great big boots, our feet would get cold in no time as we crunched through the snow. We'd stomp off as much snow as possible before we climbed in the car, some of the little kids sitting on us big kids which none of us minded cause it was warmer! On really cold days, mom and dad would pile quilts under us and on top of us and off we'd go, teeth chattering almost all the way to church.
The gravel road to church was hilly and straight as it cut through the countryside, over the frozen river on the old wooden bridge and through the woods. Dad thought it was funny to drive fast and Mom would fuss at him and tell him to slow down and my little brothers would squeal with delight every time we left our stomachs at the last hill. I learned that fear causes adrenaline and adrenaline warms you up, so maybe, there was some method to Dad's Sunday morning rush ... or maybe taking the boys back into the house to use the bathroom had made us late for church? Either way, Dad liked to drive FAST and we always got there on time.
We kids were too small to drink coffee but all of the adults did and the smell of coffee and the wood burning stove filled every corner of the church, from the sanctuary all the way to the basement nursery and Sunday school rooms. It was always warm and toasty in the church.
To this day, the smell of STRONG coffee and a wood fire take me back to that little Lutheran Church in the snow.
The coffee was made in a HUGE electric coffee pot about the size of a five gallon pail. The grounds, a raw egg (I have no idea why they put the egg in there?) and salt were put in the filter at the top and the water was percolated through the filter over and over while the minister preached in a Norwegian accent about the "gooodnoos ov Good" (always heavy on the Os). He wasn't long winded, but his thick accent made it sound like he was singing as he spoke and us kids usually fell asleep, leaning on each other down the row, but never for long.
Lutherans like to stand up to recite a verse together and sit down to listen and stand up to sing and sit down to listen and stand up to pray and sit down to give thanks and collect the offering and stand up to sing and then we are all excused to fellowship in the warmth of the basement.
It didn't take long for the men to sit down at the long tables where coffee was served and big trays of rolls and breads and cookies and bars and biscuits were placed on the crisp white table cloths. The women took off their church hats and put on pretty embroidered aprons so they could work in the kitchen on coffee and more trays and washing dishes ... or serve the guys and us kids more coffee, cocoa or milk and fill up the trays.
The men joked and talked about their week. The old men argued about who had the coldest temperature on their personal thermometer and told jokes about how they KNEW beyond a shadow of a doubt that they, in fact, had the coldest cold weather story. In the summer, men competed about catching the biggest fish. In the winter, they competed about the cold. And if there was ever even the slightest lull in conversation, one of the men would tell a Ole and Lena joke that could occasionally include their friends, Lars and Sven.
The women would laugh at the men in the other room and talk about their kids and new recipes. Some of the younger women tended to the children in the nursery and still others watched us older kids run through the hall scooting over, under and around chairs as we sampled a cookie here and a bar there. If we wanted cocoa or milk with the cookies, we had to sit at the table and act like "civilized human beings" which we were capable of doing under the watchful eyes of our Sunday School teacher or an aunt or an older cousin because none of us wanted to "get in trouble" and we knew they'd tell our Mom and Dad for sure. We would sip our drink and eat our cookie slowly and pretend we were like our folks talking about recipes and telling our own Ole and Lena jokes. We didn't know any recipes or jokes so we used our imagination.
The ladies would gather up the food, take up the table clothes and finish washing the dishes while the men would fold up the chairs and stack up the tables and move towards the door. Always, as if not wanting the fellowship to end, the very last thing to be done was to empty the last of the coffee into the big sink so that the coffee pot could be cleaned and ready for another Sunday and Strong Lutheran Coffee.
Today, we explored antique shops in the mountains. It wasn't Minnesota Cold but it was chilly enough for me to wear one of my Norwegian sweaters. We walked into an OLD hardware store that still sold some of the things we had when we were kids. It was like walking into a museum and exploring the contents of a time machine. I walked over the creaky wood floor to the back of the store and smelled STRONG coffee. I shut my eyes and suddenly I was in that little church surrounded by my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I lost five uncles and an aunt last year so I held my breath, not wanting the memory to fade too fast, holding on to the moment as long as I could ... I loved the jokes, the laughter, the lessons learned in church and the fellowship hall about being "civilized human beings", about doing good because it was what good people do, about not littering, not wasting food, watching out for the younger kids, never eating the last cookie or bar without asking if anyone else wanted it first ... If only I could hear their voices raised one more time in beautiful four part harmony ... and just then, in an old hardware store in the mountains of North Carolina, the store music changed to an old hymn and I found myself singing alto to the parts that they would have sang.
Today was a play day, wandering through the mountains, stopping to take in the views, explore some new places, and as it turns out, I got to visit with my relatives over coffee.
(Our loved ones never really go away. The love they gave lives on in us ... I wrote this earlier this year after the passing of one of those ...)
I have not mastered endings ...
I don't know that I shall ever get it right.
My heart breaks at the loss of every loved one ...
I do not know how to say good-bye
to even one of those
ripped from my life ...
I know with my head
that people come and people go,
Tides come in and tides go out,
Night has to follow day
so that day can follow night,
Flowers need sunshine and rain
to be beautiful and strong ...
I know this with my head.
What JOY there must be in heaven
at the collection
of so many precious saints!
I can close my eyes and imagine them ...
the hugs and the cheer ...
I can see them at their finest,
shining from the inside out.
I am grateful for their health
and return to vitality.
I can feel them saying ...
"Don't miss me too much.
I really like it here!
We'll see each other soon enough.
You'll really like the view!
You haven't really lost us.
We're there inside of you ...
as close as our memory,
Our words can replay at will.
You'll hear our love played back to you
Because we love you still.
Whether death takes a loved one
to that other place,
Or life moves a loved one
to fill another space ...
The end result is the same
to those of us who are left behind ...
We close our eyes and think of them,
knowing that they are gone ...
but knowing too
that they're here inside of us ...
as close as our memory,
Our words can replay at will.
We'll hear their love played back to us
Because we love them still.
Maybe, we don't have to master endings
when nothing really ends ...
Once someone touches our life
and we share each other's heart,
Love creates a ripple
that grows into a wave ...
that carries us through our life
and way beyond the grave.
