Coffee and Ringtones

I’d forgotten to put my phone on vibrate and my sound notification goes off that I’d just received a text from my husband Marc.

“You’re kidding, right.” My girlfriend says sarcastically.

I smile.

I shrug.

I agree…yup, it’s sappy.

August 11, 1989, Marc and I went on our first date and have been together ever since.

We work daily at being sappy.

When Marc and I were first married he had asked me what it would take to make me happy. I told him, “Wake me up with a cup of coffee.”

He has.

For 27 years.

No, it’s not the coffee that’s made me happy, but the 15 minutes we spend every day talking over that cup of coffee. When life was crazy busy having two babies born with CF, we would even wake up an extra 20 minutes earlier to make time for that cup of coffee.

We’d talk about our parenting, our marriage, and our dreams.

In our talks, we’d remind each other the reason why we were so crazy busy with a family, job, mortgage, and stress…it was because WE had fallen in love back in 1989. We’d remind ourselves that WE were a priority in our own lives. WE were a team.

We’d kiss every hello and goodbye, and every good morning and goodnight.

Together we have faced many hurdles and obstacles and you’d be amazed what 15 minutes a day have done.

Then in 2006, we faced our hardest challenge, our biggest fear, our worst nightmare.

We faced the loss of our little girl.  Cystic Fibrosis destroyed her lungs and there was nothing more medical science could do. On Monday, December 4, 2006 our baby girl Jena moved up to heaven. She was 13.

No amount of kisses, talks, or all the coffee in the world could heal our hearts.

We were broken.

We grieved separately.

Marc gave me space to grieve for as long as I needed. I gave him the room to mourn. A loss of a child cuts you at your core, and you are alone with your emotions.

It wasn’t pretty.

It wasn’t kind.

It was real.

Marc never did stop bringing me coffee, though many a morning it went cold, untouched.

We still sat for those 15 minutes, though often it was in silence or mumbled words cased in tears.

We had created a family out of love and the deep pain of even our daily kisses hurt our hearts, though trembling, still, we’d kiss.

So the ringtone fits.

There are still days when I find myself curled up on the floor in an emotional mess. Alone.

And out of the blue, Marc will send me an innocent text of “I’ll be home at 7 pm” but my iPhone softly sings,

…and it reminds me that life is a beautiful roller coaster adventure if you actively work on the journey; and drink coffee.

At lunch, I finish texting Marc a reply, switched my iPhone to vibrate…and I caught my girlfriend searching iTunes for a ringtone.