The Comfort of Tea

TW - Sickness of a loved one.

I remember when she used to do this for me.

This mundane everyday task of making tea. And now I have come to associate the motions of stirring and sipping with a love so deep and rich.

I look over and see her gripping her blanket hard, the first sign that she’s having a bad day. She is so small now, almost disappearing into the plush seat. My gaze lingers a little longer to make sure she is breathing. There’s a rise and fall and then a beat longer before there is another rise. I let out a grateful sigh. For now, she’s still here. And I get to make to her tea.

The kettle sings and I take it off. I busy myself with looking for a mug, something pretty even though the gesture may be lost on her. I pull open several cabinets before my frustration releases itself in a busload of tears. These are precious minutes being wasted away looking for a cup, time I could spend committing her face to memory, the new lines that have formed and the little spots that age has etched on her skin. After all my biggest worry is that I might forget her all too soon. Like I forgot our tea dates over the years. Like I forgot our daily phone calls till they turned into weekly phone calls and eventually monthly ones.

Now that the tears are here, I let myself heave it all out. So that when I deliver the cup, it is not coloured with all my guilt and emotions. 

She always treated tea like an event. Going out of her way to mix in some milk and sugar for me when she could barely afford it. It’s now that I am older that I feel in some of those memories. She never added any of that luxury for herself. She would always unwrap a sandwich and split it in the middle for us to share. Then to elevate the moment, she would remind me that high tea was something rich and class people would do. We’d play it out, picky sticking out, picking our discoloured mugs from chipped saucers and talking in a snotty accent we assumed people used when they met for tea. 

High tea was always going to be something we would do together. In the future. At a better time. When our stars aligned. And despite my resolve to give her those luxuries when I was older, time got away from me…from my commitment. I always thought we would have time. That was where this story first went wrong.

I brace myself, sniff and clean my nose on my sleeve. I pull out a mug that says ‘World’s Best Mum’. I laugh a little at that but it comes out as a squeak. I got that for her when I was 11. Because I saw it and thought it was nice. I had been doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood because I saw how her eyes misted over whenever I announced I needed something new. A new bag, new shoes, new pen. I learnt to make do and felt proud that rather than ask, this time I would be the one to give. But she was not to be outdone. A few days later a found a little mug that read ‘Anytime is Tea time’. We laughed at that and plotted to test that theory. We had tea at odd hours that year. 

Then I outgrew it. 

And now I can’t remember the last time I got her a gift as ordinary as a mug just because I could. 

I place the teabag in the cup and fill it up, letting the scent of mint and lavender saturate the kitchen. I count out two teaspoons of sugar and stir. And stir. And stir.

Her solution to bad days was easily tea. She always ran to tea for comfort like some people run to soup. Maybe it was easier for her…and cheaper too. When I came back crying, she’d get a cup and tell me it would all sound less intense with tea. She would also make a cup for herself and we would snuggle into my bed, because it was bigger, and let our hearts out. We joked about becoming tea connoisseurs. 

But at 12, I started to notice the oddities, the differences between our two-person family and those of all the cool people at school. All of a sudden, tea was not enough. It was a reminder of how different I was. How incomplete.

I breathe in the tea deeply and wonder why I ever believed for once that tea was lacking. I place the cup on a tray and head into the sitting room.

“Tea time,” I announce with a false smile that tries to hide my breaking heart. She doesn’t look away from the window. When I fail to get her attention, I look out too and hope I can see whatever it is she is seeing. Something to bond us one more time. Maybe that’s why I run to tea - a language of comfort we understand so well. 

Maybe, in my head, I imagine that the familiarity of this all will awaken something and we’ll get to talking like we used to. About dreams, and low points, and fears and hopes. About the future like our existence in each other’s lives was a constant. 

I lay the tray down and wait for her to reach for it. Wait for her to smile at me and tell me this is all a bad dream. That she’s fine, I’m fine and we’ve got enough years to go.

She doesn’t reach for the cup. She doesn’t look at me. We don’t talk. Instead, I sit in the silence and remember all the moments we are never going to recreate.

I want to remind her of the week we discovered spiced tea. I was 7 and coming from a party where they handed us flavoured tea as party favours. We tried all the favours that night and never looked back.

I want to tell her of the conversations we used to have over tea into the dead of night. After she would return from a long shift and I would hear moving in the kitchen, fixing me a cup of things she could hardly afford. 

I want to laugh at the petty fights that she always believed would be solved if we could just talk it out.

I want to go back to a time when deciding which tea flavour was one of the hardest choices I had to make.

We sit like that for a while. Then she starts to shiver.

“I want to sleep,” she says in a weak voice, I can hardly believe it was the same great alto that sang me to sleep when I was scared.

I get up and help her to her bed. Everything about her is so fragile there’s a bit of me that imagines she’ll disappear in my arms. I pull up as many blankets as I can and tuck her in. I pick up the tea to pour away but think twice about that and end up sitting with it in the armchair next to her bed. I watch her sleep and sip the tea. A little lukewarm but I’m warmed by all the memories it stirs up.

I remember when she used to do this for me. And much as I have convinced I was doing this for her, I truly was doing this for me.