Kathi Waligora

It was a service for eight: plates with a yellow flower, yellow cups, saucers – you know – a complete set of dishes. My mother bought them for her little kitchen in Florida, their winter home. And she used them for many years.

Some years ago, their winter vacations in Florida ended, as neither Mom nor Dad could make the long trip from Michigan any longer. Aging had set in – to the point of being considered “old” or “elderly,”  terms they didn’t like any more than I did. And no one liked the changes those words brought, including the end of an era of Florida vacations and winters – days filled with fishing, relaxing, family and neighborhood dinners, collecting shells and shark’s teeth, and  watching Ole’ Joe, the five foot Blue Heron who pranced the backyard and danced across the roof.

Suddenly their winters were spent in the warmth of their cozy Michigan living room instead of the sunshine of the Florida outdoors.

Along with their aging bodies, they had brought a few things back to Michigan from their Florida house, including the yellow dishes. Some time later, when their final winters were spent in a nursing home, I placed the yellow dishes, among other things, in a large sale, saying an ultimate goodbye to those Florida winter days.

Years passed, and their Venice, Florida house came up for sale; Ron and I bought it! We drove down – from Michigan to Venice – with the sole purpose of working on the house – you know – replacing windows and flooring, painting, cleaning, and generally renovating the neglected place.

If you know us, you know that Ron and I are considered coffee “snobs.” (It came about when we opened North Woods Coffee Co. in Coldwater, Michigan.) We love good coffee and we drive miles to find it. My road atlas is marked with notes of good coffee shops along the way – from Michigan to Venice. Of course, we take our favorite coffee maker along with us on vacations! (Doesn’t everyone?)

We also, most often, take our own coffee mugs along when we travel – our favorite being a plain white diner mug, in which we served our awesome coffee at North Woods Coffee Co. But on this trip, we were so packed in our small SUV and trailing U-Haul, we had tried to bring only what we would actually “leave” at our new winter home in Venice. We didn’t want to leave our small collection of diner mugs, saved from North Woods Coffee Co., so . . .

. . . after we spent the first night in a Venice motel (the little winter home yet not renovated), we rose early and went directly to the little home, pulled the coffeemaker our of the SUV,and proceeded to make a pot of the hot brew we so loved. I  opened the kitchen cupboard, searching through the hodgepodge of dishes , which had accumulated throughout years of rentals and the vacations of numerous strangers. Searching those neglected shelves, I discovered a vast collection of mugs, some adorned with teddy bears or Christmas greetings, others embellished with the names and logos of nearby realtors and dentists. But behind the odd assortment, my eyes fell upon a cute little abandoned yellow cup: one in which my index finger comfortably slipped through the handle, one which held just the right amount of morning coffee I like to begin with, one that was filled with memories of Florida breakfasts and dinners of our own vacations past, and one which had been “left” in that little Florida kitchen many years before by my Mama and Daddy.

The yellow cup will remain in the Venice house, alone, among other vintage dishes – the ones I had taken from Michigan and had planned to use. It will always be a reminder of days gone by, of sipping morning brew on the lanai or a cup of French press with afternoon dessert.  The yellow cup will often be the first one I use on warm, sunny Florida mornings because, you see, for some reason, my coffee tastes even better in that cute little yellow cup!