Soothing tea

 I woke up this morning and went to get a cup of coffee. I reached up into the cupboard where the coffee lives and all this brown grainy stuff fell down. Someone had neglected to close the bag of mocha mix. I choose to blame my now coffee drinking teenager, though I suppose it might have been me. There was mocha mix all over the cupboard shelf.  

So while I mumbled under my breath that I was going to send the teenager to live with her father, I proceeded to pull everything out of the cupboard so I could clean it. There was an actual bag of coffee, no idea how old that is since I've used pods for years. A bag of loose leaf tea that seemed to have fallen under the same fate as the mocha mix. A mason jar half full of bits of flowers and herbs. Awwwwww my Stacie tea.

Dan died in the middle of the night. Extremely suddenly and unexpectedly is my go to phrase. Just dead, just gone, just like that. By the next morning my house was full of people. I didn't know what to do so I did whatever they told me. My friend handed me coffee from our favorite coffee shop so I took it. My sister handed me water so I drank it. It's a good thing I was surrounded by good people cause in all likely hood if someone had handed me crack I would have taken it. I just did what I was told. 

I was sitting on my bed sometime that afternoon, my bestie Stacie was crouched down in front of me "Jenny you need to get some sleep, I'm going to make you some tea" She popped up like a princess and went down the hall. I hadn't slept since Dan died the night before. Stacie is what I call my dirty hippie friend. She is very into tea's and natural remedies, she wants to be a herbalist. She came back with a giant and I mean giant glass of cold tea. "Here drink the entire thing and then lay down" I have no idea what was in it, I just trust Stacie not to give me crack. I remember feeling it work almost immediately, I could feel my nerves relaxing a little. I was tired and I wanted to sleep. I laid down but sleep didn't come.

Stacie was over at my house all the time in the following weeks. Always handing me a cup of her tea when she thought I needed it. If she wasn't there she would text me. "drink a cup of tea and lay down" When I would message her, "I can't stop crying, I can't breathe" she would say "go make a cup of Stacie tea." She became my tea supplier, bringing me giant mason jars of her loose leaf tea she had mixed together herself. It was one of the few things that felt like it helped.  I think I lived on Stacie tea, it was soothing and comforting. The only thing at that time that was.

Slowly I drank less and less of it. I drank more and more coffee because I got thrown back into life where I needed to go go go. I moved twice, taking my Stacie tea with me, drinking it occasionally. I don't think I've had any since I've moved into my new house. 

Yet there it was today in the back of my cupboard in case I needed it. Awwwww my Stacie tea. Dan, Dan, Dan. I should throw it out, I never drink it anymore. But Dan. That's my Stacie tea, I drank it all the time when Dan died. It's just tea, I try to tell myself. Besides doesn't tea go bad eventually, doesn't it like loose its potency or flavor. I have no idea, I should really ask Stacie.  But Dan. There is Dan in that tea, if I throw that tea out I'm getting rid of another memory of Dan. Some of the last remnants of Dan. 

Your being ridiculous I tell myself, it's ok, it's just tea. I open the jar and dump it into the trash can. And then I stand there and stare at it. And now as I write this I wish I hadn't of done it. I've gotten rid of so many of his things since he died. His shoes were easy, he hated his shoes. His hair ties I kept, I couldn't get rid of them. The Stacie tea that he never even knew about. That was hard to let go of Dan.

I wrote a book about my grief. You can read it here: Carry on Castle