When Dad and I had Tea

By

Karen Hamilton

It was a brilliant snowy weekday, just like today, around noon. The sun never got very high in the sky at this time of year but it lit everything up to almost neon proportions, snow actually drifted in the air in dusty sparkles. All was quiet. The animals had gone underground. People were hunkered inside their houses or at work downtown. It had been this way for the last five days and Dad and I were victims of cabin-fever. It was time to go out, somewhere, anywhere. Neither of us liked shopping much and any gratuitous driving seemed foolish on these roads according to Mother, so we agreed, and just the two of us went to the pub.

There was a favorite watering-hole of mine in a shopping district in town, it was called Tullamore. Good and Irish, just like my Dad’s Dad had been. So we made the trip on icy roads and trundled-in through the door of the pub, and I saw to my pleasure that the spot with the comfy-chairs right in front of the lit fireplace was free. It was quite a lot dimmer inside the pub and so with our adjusting eyes we sought out that bright place instinctively. We also realized that we were nearly the only ones in there when we peeled off all of our outer layers and winter gear and ordered some hearty Irish fare. I cannot recall precisely what we each had to eat but it was the big and bottomless pot of tea that I recollect most distinctly. We’d finished eating long before but we laboured happily over that brown pot, eagerly filling our mugs to the brim with that hot brew.

My Dad and I could talk about just about anything, from geology to the sewers of Paris. I don’t even remember what we talked about that day. It was couple of years before he got really sick and couldn’t walk anymore, or talk anymore, or swallow anymore. That jewel in my mind is as brilliant as the winter day is now.

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