I'm Learning

He should have known.
He should have known me.
He should have known me better.

My husband this Saturday morning hands me a cup of coffee he made, for me. He offered to make it, he made it with love, he delivered it to me in bed.

I am so grateful.
I am so upset.
I am upset with me for the part of me that is upset.

"Is this the largest mug you could find?" I ask?
"I didn't really think about it," he said. "I saw you've been using this for your coffee."
"Yes," I say, "But I use the Keurig during the week. "When you make my coffee, I like to drink it from the bigger mugs." (You should know that, I imply.)

I couldn't not say it. I couldn't resist implying he should know better than to not use a giant mug when he makes me his custom coffee.

I sit up in bed sipping, but not quite enjoying, my morning brew.

I rewind to seven years ago, that October when my backpacking, solitude-loving, introverted husband took me to New York City for my fiftieth birthday. After an adventure-filled week, the morning of our departure we Googled Dunkin' Donuts and found one a mile from our hotel. The shop was a novelty for us, since at the time no DD's existed in Southern California, where we live. We had just enough time to squeeze in one last visit so took the mile walk. There I found a mug I wanted, and Brent bought it for me, an item celebrating both NYC and Dunkin' Donuts, a perfect souvenir.

While packing after hurrying back to the hotel, I was realized I had left the newly purchased mug at the donut shop. We phoned to verify it was indeed there, and Brent ran as fast as he could a mile, retrieved my souvenir, and ran back, mug in hand, to the hotel, where we caught our ride to the airport just in time to catch the flight home.

He was my hero, and I told him so.

This mug that brings back happy memories is the same mug I'm upset about this morning. It's the one he chose to serve my coffee in.

Even now, I see those words, he chose to serve, and I know I should be thankful!

I've been practicing gratitude, I really have. I know it should win over ingratitude, I really do. How I can see my husband go from hero to zero over such a thing, I don't know. But I sense it has very little to do with him and a lot to do with me.

I traveled a few steps (not a heroic mile, however) between the above paragraph and the one I am writing now. I found my husband in the garage and told him I had something I needed to ask forgiveness for. "Whatever could you have done wrong this early in the morning?" he asked. I stumbled through my apology. He somehow had failed to be offended by my remarks but accepted my apology, along with my thanks for his kindness.

"Next time," he said, "it's OK to just ask for a bigger mug."

I think I have some things to learn, about receiving, about receiving imperfectly the imperfect gifts given to me, about allowing even my gratitude to be imperfect.

Lord, I'm grateful. Help my ungratefulness.


Diane Mann 2020

For Zac

I look at you with a blank stare
The young man
Who married my daughter
And fathered my granddaughter

You're asking about my dad
Listening
As we who knew him
Recall
What he was like
(How long do you have?)

I didn't know what to say, except
I wish you could have known him

I can tell you this:
If you've seen a kind man
Who is also strong
A man who can laugh at himself
Who is also proud
A man whose faith grows
With each impossible trial
A man pointing out the pretty in nature
Who recreates it in his art
A man who welcomes others
Yet needs time alone
A man who asks, "Why me?"
Wrought with pain
Who also asks, "Why me?"
Weighted with gratitude and wonder
A man falling more in love with God
To whom sharing Love is everything
An anxious man
Still learning
To trust
With an increasingly grateful heart
For all God has given him

Then you've seen someone like my dad,
Whom, as you've witnessed by our words
Loved Deeply and is
Deeply Loved.

Diane Mann, 2020

The Exchange

He was tall and built, handsome, beanie-capped,  cheerful, and bundled up, the Christmas tree lot employee. He stood taller than most of the trees displayed on a corner south of town and could lift a hefty tree as though it were as light as an umbrella. He moved about the lot with ease this crisp December evening, helping wherever he saw a need.

I saw him approach several different people before he made his way over to me, where I stood waiting while my husband paid for our tree. As he moved closer,  I noticed he was holding something up. It was pink and a little sparkly, rectangular, and he handled it as though it were something important.

"Is this yours?" he asked, his hands cupping what appeared to be my cell phone. Yes, it was, but I intentionally left my phone in the truck, I thought I remembered. How can that be?  He pointed me to where he found it, hundreds of feet from where we stood.

He restored to me something I didn't even know was missing.

Gushing thanks and praises to my Christmas tree farm hero, I said, "This is just like a Hallmark Christmas movie! There is always a tree lot and often an angel, and you're my angel who returned this to me!"

His smile shone brighter than the white lights dangling above us. "Thank you, ma'am. That warms my heart," he said, as he rubbed his gloved hand over his chest.

We talked a bit more, and again I referred to him as an angel, while I gave more detail about what happens in Christmas movies. When we said goodbye, he said, "Thank you so much again, ma'am. I can't tell you how much my heart is warmed by what you said."

Did my words restore to him something he didn't even know was missing?

I'd really like to think so.

Diane Mann 2019

Perfectly Wrong

Sometimes I like fake.

Sometimes I prefer the aisles of Hobby Lobby's darling Fall decor over stepping outdoors, into Fall. I adore farmhouse-themed paintings and rustic welcome signs, but I don't like the messiness that comes with real farms. I find myself enjoying the idea of something rather than stepping into the reality of that something itself.

This week my daughters and I, with their children, got together on the four-year anniversary of my mom's death. We explored going to tea like we had done in the past to remember my mom, their grandma, who loved to give tea parties. Yet somehow we landed on the idea to visit a nearby farm to let the kids see animals and pick out pumpkins to bring home.

It was midday, and the sun glared, giving us no chance for cute kids-with-pumpkin photos. The pumpkins themselves were unappealing. Toy tractors set out for children to ride wouldn't roll on the wood chips they were placed on. And my grandchildren were noticeably uninterested in the farm animals (except the one pooping sheep that got their attention for a bit).

I went to the produce room to purchase something to support the farm. I found the produce to be, well, ugly. Grapes sat in a basket, and they were much smaller than grocery store grapes, with no fun packaging announcing, "I am a grape. Buy me!" The signs in front of each bunch of vegetables were not drawn in modern calligraphy but just written with ordinary handwriting. Apples were small and dull, peppers unimpressive in their presentation. I read a sign advertising olive oil. Olive oil I could buy. It would be in a bottle with a pretty label. But the olive oil supply was out.

Finally I saw a freezer containing grass-fed beef, so I purchased a pound of ground beef (with a SKU code on the packaging, which somehow makes it seem a step from it being too real).

I don't know why I was so repulsed by everything I saw at the farm. I give this farm thumbs-up on Facebook and follow it on Instagram, "loving" each picture posted. I've even enjoyed being there in the past. Perhaps I feel safer viewing it from behind the screen—cleaner, no dirt getting into my sandals, no harsh sun beating down on me, no animal smells or bodily functions.

This morning I'm remembering a family road trip from my childhood. I saw beautiful views, sitting in admiration while looking through the windows of our fully packed Volkswagen bus. Am I really seeing this lovely scenery, I wondered to myself, or does it not count because I am seeing it through this glass window? But when we got out of our van and stepped into the real, beautiful and ugly, dusty, windy, cold or hot place, I experienced what was real about all I saw. While I may have both liked and disliked some things about the place I got to enter into and explore, I always appreciated the real.

Our group traveled from the farm to an outdoor mall, where we enjoyed coffee. Karis had baked some of Grandma's cookies she shared with us. I then took the children on a ride in a fake train. My granddaughter stood up quickly, excited to see a water fountain out the window and bumped her head. She cried for her mama, who we could see through the window the entire train ride. My grandson had opted for a seat in the back car, away from us, joined by a fake skeleton. Just before the ride began, he came up to our car, and told me, "I was only a little, tiny bit scared of the skeleton," so he rode in the train car with me, a bit shaken.

Still pumpkinless, we said our parking lot goodbyes. My daughters and I noted that my not-animal-loving mom would have appreciated that we didn't have fun at the farm; not enjoying animals seemed a fitting way to honor her memory! We hugged, and I told them I would send money through a phone app so they could buy their own pumpkins at the grocery store. How "not real" can you get?

I later texted Karis and Megan, "Thank you for today. It was wrong in so many ways, which somehow made it perfect."

Perhaps memories of the day my mom died held enough reality that I necessarily had to reject the nitty-gritty, real stuff of this world for a day.

Sometimes I like fake. And sometimes that's OK.

Diane Mann, 2019