Whose Turn Is It to Make Tea?

A pitcher of sweet tea was as standard as toilet paper and electricity, with one glaring difference. Mom took full responsibility for assuring that we never ran out of toilet paper and Daddy paid the utility bills on time. The rest of us never gave those things a first thought. Tea was a shared responsibility.

Whoever emptied the tea pitcher was responsible for refilling it - no exceptions. If you were one of the dozens of people who visited our house at least once a week, you pulled tea duty.

For the most part, my mother was not demanding or unreasonable. We had fewer chores and rules than anyone did. Mom was appreciative, complimentary, and flexible - except where the tea was concerned. We used the same pan, six bags of Lipton, ¾ of a cup of sugar, and the Tupperware pitcher, always. No lemon, ever (although she ate lemons like other people eat oranges).

To say she had eyes in the back of her head would be shortchanging her. Mom didn't have to be awake or even in the same county to know who poured the last glass of tea without making a new pitcher, and this was before surveillance cameras. She would call us out of bed or home from a friend's house to make the tea.

The boys thought they were clever when they learned to return the pitcher to the refrigerator with only a swallow in it. We got them back with, "While you're up, would you mind refilling my glass?" The competition grew fierce, even ugly at times, resulting in some people stopping at the kitchen door and refusing to enter if the tea pitcher was sitting on the counter. I think my sister might have gone a year without drinking a drop of tea, to be sure she didn't have to make a pitcher.

Second to her laugh, I would guess that the tea pitcher would identify Mom. When she went into the nursing home and we divided her things, I brought the tea pan home with me.

The pan had seen better days - at least 10,000 of them - so I retired it to a place of honor on my kitchen wall. Occasionally, I pulled it down and washed it. Often, I looked at it and remembered the many people who had touched it, laughed at it, fought over it, and sat around the table drinking tea that had brewed in it.

Mom died recently. Her death was neither unexpected nor difficult, for her or for us. It was time and she was ready. My real mother - the one who remembered my name, cared what I was doing, laughed, and talked to me - had been gone for years, so I had only to get through the emotions of letting go of her body.

This week, as has happened after other loved ones died, my real mother came back. It wasn't one of those experiences where the curtains moved, a picture fell off the wall, or I heard her voice or felt her presence. This was simply my creating a moment in which I went back many years, opened my heart, and allowed my Mommy to fill it with love.

I took the pan off the wall, washed it, and made a pitcher of tea - for Mom and me. And when I poured the last glass, I didn't make the next pitcher.