Having coffee with your father

In case you missed them, here are Part 1 and Part 2 of the Stories from Grace Manor series.

This Friday morning, we’re back in our corner of the dining hall at Grace Manor. We usually meet at 10 and wrap things up around noon. I arrived at 10, but there was no one in sight. I went to the kitchen to check with Mary – maybe she knew something.

She mentioned that Trynie had dropped off the Douwe Egberts Coffee and a Gemberkoek about 10 minutes earlier. She wasn’t sure if Jan would make it today. “He’s a bit confused this morning,” she had said. Mary shook her head, echoing Trynie’s concern “You men mean so much to Jan,” she added. “I hope he shows up today.” As she counted the coffee scoops into the filter, I glanced through the kitchen window and saw that the others had arrived – except Jan.

Douwe was on his way to the kitchen. “Good morning!” he shouted as he entered. “Is the coffee ready?”

Mary raised her hands. “Not yet!” She gestured towards a tray of cups on the counter and nudged me to bring it to our corner. Douwe would have to wait for the coffee.

I made my way to our spot. Pete was chatting with Bill as Broekie motioned for me to sit beside him. I set the tray of cups on the table. “Good morning, gentlemen,” I greeted them.

“We were just talking about Jan,” Pete said. “Bill and I ran into Trynie in the front hall. He had a rough night.”

Broekie shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “Corrie talked to Trynie earlier this morning. Our little group means a lot to Jan. He’ll come soon enough.”

Now Douwe has arrived with the thermos of comfort. We need it this morning. He pours a cup for each of us and sits down.

The first cup

Broekie looks directly at Douwe and asks, “Did Linda check you over before you left the house this morning?”

“No, why would she?”

“Well, you’ve got half your breakfast on your shirt.” We all glance at Douwe, and sure enough, a yellow streak of soft-boiled egg decorates his shirt.

Douwe chuckles, brushing at the mess, he says, “Yup – looks like the yolk’s on me.”

We laugh.

“We’ll need to be patient with Jan,” Bill says, turning serious. “We have to include him as much as we can. When we talk about the past, we should start with ‘I remember. . . .’” He adds, “and when we ask him questions, we should always look directly at him and speak in the present.”

Pete says he’s been thinking the same thing. We might be talking about the young people of the past, but we’re the old folks of today. Someone says, “with age comes infirmity.” True, but we prefer not to talk about that – until we can’t avoid it.

“Have you been to that hearing clinic yet, Douwe?” I ask.

Douwe looks at me and grins. “What?” He cups a hand around his ear and starts laughing. “I’m not ready for that yet – that’s for old people.” He laughs at his own joke.

Our little group isn’t quite the same this morning. We finish our first cup, and now Bill picks up the thermos and pours the second. He passes around the plate with buttered Gemberkoek. There’s just one slice left on the plate.

Gingerbread loaf

As I’ve said before, we’re better at talking about the past than the present. Perhaps we feel we have a better grasp on the past. I share this thought.

“We own the past and hold the present in trust,” Bill agrees. “We have to ask our six-year-old grandson to download and explain the latest apps on our iPads.” He shakes his head. “I’ve got an old Underwood typewriter in my study. Last week, my grandson pointed to it and said, ‘Wow, Opa, that thing’s a hundred years old!’ I took it down from the shelf to let him have a close look, to feel the keys. ‘There’s no screen, Opa,’ he said, pressing the A key. ‘This is cool! Can you play games on it?’”

We laugh.

Just then, Jan appears in the doorway. He looks uncertain. We watch as he takes a tentative step forward, then hesitates.

“Jan! Over here!” Bill calls, standing up and pulling out a chair.

Jan blinks, then his face softens. “Ah,” he says, shuffling toward us. “There you all are.”

Broekie pats the empty chair. “Sit down, Jan. We saved you a slice of Gemberkoek.”

Jan lowers himself on the chair. “Thank you,” he murmurs. He looks at the coffee Douwe hands him, then at us. “I had a dream last night,” he says after a moment. “I dreamed I was still a young man, sitting at my father’s table, drinking coffee.” He frowns, as if the memory is slipping away.

“That’s a beautiful memory Jan,” Pete says, “having coffee with your father.”

Jan stares at his hands. “It felt real,” he whispers as he lifts his eyes, “but when I woke up, I couldn’t remember where I was.”

“Yes,” Broekie says, “and you’re having coffee with us . . . here . . . and now.”

The moment becomes a silence.

Today’s ‘software’

Then Bill reaches over and touches his arm. “You know, Jan, we’re talking about my grandson and my Underwood Typewriter.”

Jan nods slowly. “Yes,” he says.

“I’ve got to preach this Sunday,” Bill continues. “That Underwood typewriter gave me an idea. I explained to my grandson that the typewriter had just one purpose: to produce a printed page. It’s what we now call ‘hardware.’ The machine is fixed. Our use of it – that’s what we now call ‘software.’” He pauses for a moment, then puts his phone on the table. “This phone is hardware. It has over two million apps available – that’s software.”

From an Underwood typewriter to an iPhone – that’s who we are. The young people from the past are now called to be the software of today.

“I’m going to preach on Matthew 16:24: ‘If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.’ The cross is hardware. Carrying it is software. Our confessions are hardware; living them is software.”

We sit in silence for a while. Then Broekie pours himself another cup of coffee. “And software,” he says, “needs updating from time to time.”

Douwe coughs, about to say something, but hesitates. We look at him. “Never mind,” he says, glancing at the ceiling. We know Douwe had gone through a tough divorce some years back. Then he says quietly, “Ieder huis heeft zijn kruis.” We know this means: Every home has its cross.
So we nod.

Now Bill turns to Pete, who hasn’t said much this morning. “Pete, tell us,” he says, “how did it go with Grace last night?”

The scrape of Pete’s chair against the floor is the only sound in Grace Manor. “Yeah,” he says. He waits. No one speaks, so he goes on. “It was good.”

Pete lost his wife a few years ago. Last month, Bill introduced him to Grace, a widow for ten years.

“But also difficult,” he continues. His fingers tighten around his coffee cup. His gaze drops. He exhales. Clears his throat. No words.

We wait.

“It was tough.” He stares past us into the dining room. “You know, just having her next to me in the car . . . .”

We all nod, letting him take his time. Pete shifts in his seat, glancing at his cup, then back at us, but his eyes don’t meet ours. “Little things,” he murmurs, “silly things.” His hands rub together trying to warm up. “When she laughed –” His voice is barely above a whisper. “I loved her laughter.” He pauses, “But it felt . . . wrong. Like I was betraying . . . .” His voice fades. His eyes drop. The silence holds.

“We hear you,” Bill says.

We talk to each other for some time.

Now Douwe collects the empty coffee cups, placing them on the tray. As he reaches for the last one, he sees the remaining slice of Gemberkoek. He picks it up and turns to Jan.

“Jan, your slice,” he says, holding it out. Jan looks at Douwe but shakes his head.

Douwe nods, smiles, then breaks the piece in two. He places half on Jan’s saucer and holds the other half in his hand. Jan’s eyes brighten as he looks at Douwe. Then he picks up his piece. For a moment, no one speaks. Then Jan says, “Thanks, brother.”

Douwe lifts his half of the slice and takes a bite. He turns and carries the tray of empty cups to the kitchen.

The story continues. . . here is part 4 (of 6) of Allan Romkema’s Stories from Grace Manor: “Between two sips of coffee“