The other morning, about the time the sun was coming up, I was awakened by the smell of coffee in my bedroom. It was potent, bitter chocolatey, and pulled me from a deep sleep. Opening my eyes, I listened for signs of life in the kitchen. The house was still; everyone was sleeping, even the dogs. And, all those asleep were non-coffee connoisseurs. I closed my eyes and inhaled the comforting smell, remembering. It was the same rich, inviting aroma that filled the mornings for my entire relationship with Edmond. I could have questioned the scene, investigated, but instead I allowed it to be what it was, and drifted back to a deep, dreamy sleep. When I woke up an hour or so later, the bouquet of brewing coffee was gone.

These are the little gifts, subtle whispers of what was real between us. A smell, a perfume of memories, calls forth so many mornings together, so many beginnings. Also, it is a reminder of how precious and fleeting this life can be. He was here, and then he was not.

Precious moments as they occurred were not lost on us. Both of us had experienced enough loss to know that crossing the thresholds purposefully was paramount for the life we wanted to live. Edmond and I honored what was important; and it was and is our legacy. It is a family tradition and ritual.

In the mornings, starting the day together with coffee slowly was essential. When he won a case, we dressed up and went to dinner. When I quit a job that needed to be quit, we celebrated my new freedom. On Sundays, we had bubbles on the deck to celebrate the end of a weekend together and the beginning of a week together. It bridged the transition between unstructured time and structured time.

Our children know the import of the touching of glasses, the toast, table tap, and sip. “Knocking glasses” was the phrase the observant William used early in his life, maybe around age two. He would remind us, as we began a meal, chattering and laughing around a table ready for the good food before us, “Don’t we need to knock glasses?” Yes, yes, yes, we do. We do need to acknowledge this miracle of our togetherness, our love and life here, this experience. Knocking glasses is a prayer of gratitude and acknowledgment.

We all do it, knock glasses, with whatever beverage we have: water, tea, bubbles, beer, wine, or whiskey. We honor the moment of togetherness, the fact that we all showed up to share a meal and time, community and connection. The knock often brought tears of love and joy; now it also brings tears because he is not here knocking glasses too. I felt those tears pushing through tonight at dinner with two dear friends, William, and Ellie after a swim in Barton Springs. He would have been there, and he would have loved to share the meal with us. He was there, but not in the same way. Damn it.

A Drinking Song

by William Butler Yeats
Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

I miss you. I love you.

After Ellie was born in 2012, we buried her placenta in the garden. Then, we planted a fig tree in the soil a layer above in that same spot. However, we did not do either of these immediately.

I knew she was my last birth, and so I needed to mark this threshold for myself. We needed to mark it for our family. Our lives were in the midst of a major transition, especially after the death of my father-in-law a few months before. We were in the middle of so much that spring, with two teenagers, a tween, toddler, and newborn, and planning a remodel to accommodate our growing family. Part of the remodel was establishing a courtyard/garden in the area in front of the kitchen.

So, I froze the placenta until the garden was ready.

At some point later that same year, before the garden was complete, Edmond made an al pastor sauce. It was amazing, and there were leftovers. Along with the frozen turkey stock, hog and deer meat, the remaining al pastor sauce went in that same freezer on the shelf above the frozen placenta. Some months later, remodeling our kitchen and bathroom began. Because it included the demolition of our kitchen and bathroom, we moved into my father-in-law’s vacant house a mile or so up the road. During construction, the power was on and off, and the contents of that freezer melted and refroze several times.

After the new garden courtyard area was enclosed, it was time to burry the placenta. I went into the back freezer to find the results of all the freezing and melting over the last six months of construction. We tossed the food items that were no longer safe for eating. With all the contraction and expansion of cold and heat, the al pastor sauce had exploded beyond the container all over the frozen placenta. There was not any good way to really clean the al pastor sauce off the bag containing the placenta without defrosting it all one more time. I was not willing to do so. So, I dug the hole in the garden and buried the frozen placenta iced in the chili, garlic, vinegar sauce.

A few weeks later, we planted a Celeste Fig tree. Over the last ten years, the tree has been through a lot. Droughts and freezes, hellishly hot summers, torrential rains and deadly floods of 2015, hail and sleet, a tornado, a polar vortex, more droughts and hard freezes. I had to cut the tree down to the ground last winter, and it is as big and leafy as ever now.

The thing about our fig tree is that it is solitary. I have intended to get it a mate, a friendly fig so that they might both blossom and fruit prolifically, but I have not done so yet. Our fig tree has hardly produced fruit despite its size and many branches and leaves.

Last summer, on our way to Colorado, I noticed two figs ready and ripe. I was thrilled! The car was packed and running, but before we pulled out of the driveway I plucked them. As we left our street, I gave E a bite and I ate the other half. It was a perfect fig. The other fruit rode on the dash with us to our half-way stop in Lubbock. When we arrived for the night, I cut the fig into quarters, and with a dollop of yogurt and a bit of honey made this perfect little dessert for E and I to share. Figs are perhaps my favorite fruit or at least one of my top three.

Eating those figs was a celebration of how far we had come as partners, as a family. And, they were delicious.

This summer, there are more figs than this tree has ever produced. In April, I remember looking out the kitchen window from the couch where I lived the first few weeks after E died. I saw the light of spring on the new leaves changing. In his absence, it was so hard to look at that subtle light shift on the fig leaves. Time continues. Now, in the summertime heat with plump figs threatening to droop, waiting to be eaten, it is hard to muster the strength to go into the garden and pluck them. Maybe I will leave them for the birds. I will have to decide. No decision —because time—is a decision.

Not doing is also a ritual action. Abstaining from what we typically do, like a misplaced Lenten season, marks a moment. I did not plant a spring garden to mark this enormous loss. The garden looks like I feel: wild, scattered, without pattern, dead or dying, only the hardiest parts returning, surviving. The blackberries, thyme, rosemary, oregano, butterfly bush, and a few wild flowers have sustained the heat and lack of rain. I have only recently waked through to the worm/compost bin to deposit the coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and egg shells. Maybe composing again is ceremony, ritual, a marking of this threshold of destruction. Perhaps I will make it so.

What will I do to mark the season’s shifts without him?

Cheers. Knocking glasses to you my Love. I miss you. I love you.

Knock Glasses