Starbucks' Kids

[ I wrote this to be a part of my mom's Christmas present]

Little kids all buttoned up and warm. Sometimes it is cold. Sometimes it is too warm for such thermal protection. All the time it’s because the woman who dressed them is called their mother and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Many times they are ten and under. Other times they are fourteen, fifteen, and sometimes sixteen. But they are always with that one woman.

Sometimes she holds their hand if they are six and under. Other times they walk as far behind her as possible and look in whatever direction her eyes will not meet if they are eleven, twelve, or thirteen. Often times hugs are exchanged because they finally appreciate what a cup of hot chocolate, tea, and coffee means when it is shared with their mother.

I may be eighteen, but sometimes I want to be seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, or even twelve. While eighteen has proven to be the best age yet. I haven’t seen much of those coffee shops; the ones that are specifically littered with memories of you and me.

Sometimes I sat in the car and waited. Other times I went with you. Often, I smelled it when you came in the house or when I entered the car after the dentist.

That is what I think of now when I am left to sit in that coffee shop by myself. I may be studying, but I am really thinking of you. I am really thinking of all the couches, chairs, counters, and lines where we have fought and laughed. I am thinking that sometimes I love it here and sometimes I hate it. No matter what feeling these ideas bring to my head I am always grateful.

Illinois may be the greatest, worst, craziest, unpredictable thing that has ever happened to me. However, if it were the worst I would still consider it the best. If it were the craziest I would acknowledge it for the sanity it brought me. If it were unpredictable I would claim it was planned by God.

So when I am thinking of you I am also thinking of Him. I am thinking that this is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am thinking that without this I may still be that eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, or even seventeen year old. I would see you and me as a set of rules. I would not have gotten the chance to truly know my mother.

When I sit there I think of you, me, and coffee. When I sit there I notice all the little kids, all the preteens, and all the teenagers who do not know what it is to appreciate the time. When I sit there I think how nice it would be to still be a Starbucks’ kid.