Glass Full of Memories

You wouldn’t think a glass would mean so much, but it can.  Yesterday was bagel day in our house when bagels at Panera were on sale.  After purchasing some I drove home and immediately prepared one with cream cheese.  Then I decided to have a glass of apple juice along with it.  I opened the cupboard and I saw a very familiar glass staring at me.  It was narrow at the top and particularly at the base.  The sides were wide and rounded.  The color was smoked glass and there were a Detroit Lions insignia on it.  I chose the glass and filled it up.  Then I just stared at it.  It had been in my family for as long as I could remember and with rambunctious children who broke everything, it seemed, somehow this was never smashed or even cracked.  It was my father’s main glass.  He gave up drinking when I was 3 but was still addicted to his Diet Pepsi every day.  It was a ritual.  When my father would come home, my job was to get the glass, fill it with cold Diet Pepsi (he didn’t like ice in his drink or to have it warm so we always had to have it refrigerated,) and take it to him once he reached his chair.  Then he would watch the nightly news.  After dinner and a quick nap, Dad would use his short wave radio to see what countries he could tune in.  He was always excited when he found a new station out there he could barely hear.  It gave him such pleasure but made it so difficult to do homework with the BBC Home Service blaring through the house.  Then Dad would call me downstairs to refill his glass.  We had giant ceramic ashtrays we used as coasters.  No one in the house smoked and so we never thought of them as anything but coasters.  I would clank the glass down hard but nothing ever happened even in the hard ashtrays.  If Dad was out of town on business I would use the glass.  My oldest brother is Type 1 diabetic and has been since childhood.  As a result, my mother would make Kool-Aid with Sweet and Low.  No matter the recipe, she could never make it taste good.  So I would take the glass and fill it ¾ of the way with Kool-Aid and the rest of the way with Diet Pepsi.  Then I would stir it.  The end result was not bad.  I would watch my cartoons and drink but never broke it.  Years and years went by and still that glass was used, even by my children, but it never broke.  Without even realizing it I took the glass as one of the few items I kept from my Father’s house after he died.  So there I stood with my apple juice, holding the glass that had survived everything and I thought of my Father.  I finished my drink and put it safely in the sink.   One day my children might want it.  What a long life for a fragile glass.