Early morning this past week.

My wife sat down across the table.  She was holding a coffee Cup.  It was familiar in a “long lost way.”

I looked at it, thinking, how long has she had that cup?    I had to ask.

“My Mom gave us two right after we got married..  The other is in the top of the cabinet. It’s yours.” She said.

Suddenly, I felt like I had forgotten a birthday or anniversary.

At least mine is still unbroken and barely used!

I just hate to throw a good cup away.  I have always had one or two favorite cups.  Well, three or four.  Maybe 5 or 6.  Every morning, I have to choose which cup will be favored for the day.

Actually, they’re all mugs, not cups.

I have a mug I kept at my Mom’s house for 30 years.  I didn’t like her cups either.  I wanted a mug.  It has my name on one side and an old time steam train on the other.  She gave it to me when I was in college.  I guess she thought I was going somewhere.

I brought it home after her funeral.   You know why I can’t get rid of it.

A dear friend collected cups and mugs.  He loved the different advertising logos on mugs.  He had a wall filled with 257 different cups.  While they collected dust, he drank out of his favorite. 

He was in the Navy. He dared anyone to wash his cup.  Navy folks know what I’m talking about.

Fifty years later, Sue and I have our own cupboard full of cups.  She has her favorite cups.  Including that one from her Mom.  I have mine.  And that doesn’t include the other one from her Mom.

We have a couple of boxes in the attic with more cups.  When we moved this last time we got rid of boxes of cups.  The local thrift store was overwhelmed.  I think they’re still trying to get rid of them.

I used to go back to my University for a yearly business meeting.  Every trip, they gave me a cup with the school’s logo on the other side.  A red one, a blue one, a white one, then a light blue one.  They kept collecting in our kitchen.  Then a box headed to the attic.

You can’t throw away a perfectly good cup with your college logo on the side.  That’s sacrilegious I think.

The cup holding my coffee this morning has a broken handle.  I glued it back Fifteen Years ago.   I can feel the crack where the handle broke. Fifteen years of going through the dishwasher has faded the printing.  I can’t throw it away.  My son gave it to me.  It says DAD on both sides.  It says Ole Miss, my school.  It’s still a good cup.  I’m keeping it.

I’m going to keep that cup my mother-in-law gave me also.

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