Jen at Red Leaf

Tea for Mimi

When we think about the legacy we might leave behind, we tend to think in grand declaration, not the daily, unremarkable rituals that hook in and pass down. The small absurdities, the organic comforts, the persistent habits that, perhaps, are a person's truest signature.

For my Mimi, one of these was tea. Plain old Lipton tea with a spoonful of sugar (or two), but only from a proper delicate china cup. Wherever you found Mimi, there was a cup of tea within her reach. In the height of summer, she drank it iced. But the rest of the year, she was perpetually cold, bundled in a sweater of her signature pink, blue, or red, a cup of scorching hot tea at her lips. A year or so before she died, she passed onto me a set of 4 white teacups and saucers. 

The night she lay in the hospital dying, I was beset with helplessness. I was too far away to get to her. I knew the distance was going to eat me alive. I needed to do something.  "Make tea," is what came to me. Make tea and sit. Light a candle. Let everything else clear out of the mind, and  hold the thinning thread tethering my grandmother to this world in my heart. 

Yesterday I started a new ritual as part of something else, but "make tea for Mimi" showed up again. I didn't have any Lipton on hand in my tea cupboard, so I chose one I think she would love if she were here, clucking over the selection. The pink wrapper would catch her eye. Then the ingredients, a blend of many of her favorite things: black tea, pink rose petals, and citrus.  

I set it out and send her a little love. I hope you like it Mimi. #griefritual #grief