My mom died May 11, 2012.

18 months later, I was newlywed living with my husband in the home she and I used to share.

My mom was a regular coffee drinker. She’d have a cup every morning on her way to work. Well, most of a cup. She’d always leave a little bit at the bottom. Kind of how people do with bottled water. Sometimes she would go pick up a cup at the gas station. Other times she would make it here at home.

At the house, to sweeten her morning cup, she’d dip a spoon into the whole bag of sugar. The same wet spoon that she used to stir her coffee – leaving behind black coffee crumbs and clumps of brown coffee goop in the community (my) sugar. This used to drive me crazy. “Mommy, can’t you just use a dry spoon?” “Mommy, why you keep leaving crumbs in the sugar?” “Mommy…” “Mommy…”

After a lifetime of tormenting me with contaminated sugar, she finally gets this pretty crystal sugar bowl with a lid.

And every morning she dips her wet spoon into this sugar bowl instead of the big bag of sugar. Sometimes I open it and see her coffee crumbs and the little balls of coffee goop. I think to myself “Mommy, why can’t you…?” But I don’t say anything, because at least it’s not my sugar.

Once she started chemo treatments, her taste buds changed. She no longer craved coffee. She had no interest. She didn’t even like it anymore. So, her sugar bowl just sat on the counter. Unused. Eventually, it made its way into the cabinet.

Still full of sugar. Coffee crumbs. Goop. Until one day, I’m doing a deep clean in the kitchen with my husband. I’m on a chair or standing on the counter or something and from way in the back, I pull down my mother’s sugar bowl. I’m like “look! It’s my Mommy’s sugar bowl.” I tell him the story of how this sugar bowl came to be. How I complained so much that after 20+ years, she got her own sugar on the side. I hold it up and say “You know how long it’s been since my momma used this!?”

This man looks me dead in my face and real matter of fact goes… “At least 3 years”.
I look at him.
He looks at me.
I look at him. “NIG-GAAAAAA!” I bust out laughing!
In this moment, this is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m laughing so hard I nearly fall off the counter. I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes.  “Cuz she deeeeeeeeeead!”