A Tale of Two Cups

The three of us traveled together to Crescent City to celebrate our brother's life 

and mourn his death with the people he spent his days with. When we stopped for 

coffee on that rainy day, Jill noticed these beautiful cups. She said "let's get two of 

these, so when we are home we can call each other and drink from them and have 

coffee together." Bob bought them for us. 



Once we returned home, we talked on the phone more frequently than we had in 

many previous years. We discussed some of the difficult things about growing up in our

family, about losing two of our brothers only six months apart. About some of the fun times 

we had together when we were young and best friends and roommates. 

She in her early twenties. I in my late teens.



We sang Caberet on the phone together one afternoon; our theme song from those days. 

We used to talk about showing up at Denny's in Costa Mesa at three in the morning and 

breaking into that song, dancing in the aisles and waking up those seemingly dejected 

humans who found themselves there. I wish we had done that, but even planning it was 

good for our spirits. It acknowledged that it was ok to consider doing something outlandish,

and that calling attention to yourself for being different might not be a bad thing. 

Two sisters discovering who we were. 




Sometimes we would just text "I'm having coffee with you this morning" with a picture 

of the cup. We had coffee together through Hugh's heart surgery and her cancer

diagnosis. Through her illness and her move to Placerville for those bittersweet two months 

when again, we saw each other every day and were best friends. 




I keep both cups here now. This morning I pulled one down as I sometimes do, 

to have coffee with Jill. 









©2017Sheri Hoeger