A Gift I Didn't Want

This mug was a gift that I didn’t want.

A gift from a mom that didn’t know me. That didn’t know how to connect with me. A mom that knew I liked pottery, but didn’t know much else.

For several random years, when she actually remembered or chose to acknowledge a birthday, she would gift me with a piece of pottery. A kitchen utensil holder, a toothbrush holder, this mug…

While it was true that I loved and appreciated the art of pottery, it was also true that I didn’t value belongings and random things cluttering up my home. And to be truthful, it was also true that I was resentful of these rare gifts that, to me, only highlighted the fact that one of the only things she knew about me was that I liked pottery. That highlighted the fact that she’d never tried to know me. To love me.

The mug was too small for me to drink coffee out of and not very colorful and lots of other things I found wrong with it. But, for reasons I couldn’t ever identify, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it like I normally would with some thing I didn’t value.

So, I took it to my favorite local spot a few years ago, Storm King Distilling, and ever since, it’s what my drinks have been served in. Somehow, that started making it matter a little more. Each time I’d go and see it pulled out from behind the bar and dusted off, I’d smile and look forward to sipping something delicious out of it. And every now and then, I’d catch myself thinking of my mom and smiling a little bit more.

As many of you know, my mom passed away unexpectedly a few months ago. It was harder than I could have imagined. It still is hard. It’s hard right now as I’m sitting at the distillery, nursing my one drink of the day, and writing this.

What I’ve come to realize about this mug is that, over time, it started to mean something completely different. This mug means that while she didn’t know me, she tried. She took one thing she did know and really tried. And I never gave her enough credit for that.

So here’s to those we have loved and lost. Those we’ve lost and loved. Those that loved us, but were maybe a little lost. To those times we’ve been too lost to know love. And those times we haven’t been able to recognize that sometimes love looks like a small, brown mug.