We’ll Always Have Coffee.

                                    For my father. 

      I’ve always been a Daddies girl. For as long as I can remember the spot right next to Dad has belonged to me. Even though I have a sister it’s always been clear that I am his little girl. I can only speculate that this special bond between us formed very early on. I’m sure at the moment I first showed any kind of personality it was clear, I was not just a chip off the old block, I practically was the block.
We both had this uncanny ability to piss off my mother. If ever she was unhappy you could be sure it was one of us, if not both of us that was to blame for her anger, and so we stuck together, and that’s how I liked it. I reveled in every comparison between us, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be like my Dad in every way, right down to his choice of beverages. I was barely knee high to a grasshopper the first time I had coffee, although it was mostly creamer and sugar.
Ever since then whenever my Dad would have coffee so would I. This was particularly special during the holidays. First thing on Christmas morning my siblings and I would wake my parents up and then begin to dig through the presents Santa had put in our stockings. While my mom was snapping away on her camera my Dad would disappear to the kitchen, and before long the sweet smell of coffee would begin to waft from the kitchen. He’d have a special Christmas mug and set it up next to the coffee, half and half, and the brown sugar all waiting for me. I would go in and make myself a cup of coffee, just the way I liked it before returning to the presents.
My Dad taught me to be picky about the coffee I drank. Never go to the big corporation for good coffee, but rather support the local business that only serves fair-trade, shade grown coffee, preferably roasted on site. We knew all the joints in California, but when we moved to Colorado when I was 10 we were lost, until we found Kaladis in the heart of Denver. Starting in sixth grade my Dad would always make a stop at Kaladis on the way to school, and in the summers on the way to swim practice. This daily occurrence soon became less about the coffee and more about the company. As I got older, and my taste for coffee changed, less cream and sugar more shots of espresso, so did my relationship with my dad. I no longer yearned to be just like him, and I cared more about being with my friends than being with him all the time. I was growing up, and growing away a little more each day. Except in the mornings before school. With cups of coffee before us, sitting at the round table we’d find our special place where I was his little girl again, and he was my Daddy.
Soon I got my license, and it seems like the very next day graduated high school. In the same breath I moved out of my moms house, and so did my Dad. Like father like daughter. As was to be expected this only drove us farther apart. Now his new wife usually sits next to him, and on Christmas is no special mug waiting for me.
A few weeks ago I met my Dad at Kaladis while he was tutoring. I sat next to him, leaning in closer and closer, excited that I knew the math and trying to help him tutor. In between tutoring sessions I sat just as close to him while we filled each other in on our lives, and laughed that during the past week we had both somehow, managed to piss off my mom, again. We had found our special place where I was his little girl and he was my Daddy. It’s nice to know we’ll always have coffee.