The day after my sister died, I went into Up Top Cafe on Main Street – Highway 160 running through Del Norte, Colorado – for a coffee and breakfast sandwich. I didn’t know where else to go, really.
I had gotten coffee at Up Top several times over the previous month, and it became a refuge while staying with my sister when she entered home hospice. Deb recommended it, and it was her sort of place: an airy and spacious coffee shop with art on the wall, with good lighting to sit, or sit and read, or sit and talk with others. My brother and his partner and I had sat there a month before, when we went down to do a deep clean of her apartment in August of 2024. When I returned to my sister’s apartment after Labor Day weekend, not knowing how long I would be with stay with her, Up Top became a destination a couple of times a week. Its openness was in stark contrast to the confining apartment where I slept on a futon in the living room.
My sister died at 6:22 p.m. on September 24 after three weeks in hospice. I could not bring myself to stay in her apartment the night that she passed, so I stayed in a funky, quirky motel called the Mellow Moon Lodge. It, too, was the sort of place Deb would have liked. Despite being mentally and emotionally drained from being with my sister at her end-of-life, I didn’t have a particularly good night’s sleep. Or maybe it was because of the level of fatigue and relief, I did not sleep well.
When I ordered my coffee that morning, the owner (who was working the cash register) asked me what my plans were for the day. I was caught off-guard. For the past twelve hours, all I had thought about were my plans for this day.
Back at her apartment, all of my clothes, my iPad, my journal, and my sister’s artwork that I was going to take to my home were ready to be loaded into my truck. Other things had to be thrown away. Her refrigerator had to be cleaned out. Other items I would take to storage. My mind had been playing out what the morning would look like before I started the drive home. Part of that drive was to stop at the mortuary, 15 miles down the road, to complete the paperwork.
“What are your plans for the day?” Innocent enough. I hadn’t expected the question. The owner and I had talked before, but I had never told her that I was staying with my sister or why I was in town for so long. Del Norte is the kind of town you pass through on your way to some place else.
The question knocked me out of my mental gymnastics of planning the day.
And all I could respond with was, “Uhhmm. … I really cannot say.” I was aware that my tone was distant, maybe defensive. I had lost all mindfulness of being in the present moment that I had tried to bring to my sister for the past 22 days. My voice may have cracked.
Her brow furrowed as she rang up my order. Mine wasn’t a friendly answer. Too sharp. To evasive. I knew it.
“My sister died yesterday,” I said. “ and I am heading to her apartment to pack some of her things and then head back to Colorado Springs.”
I immediately felt like this response was too much. Too emotional. Too much of a depressing gut-punch at 7:30 a.m. in response to a simple question.
Her eyes swung up to meet mine.
“I am so sorry. So, so sorry.” And she leaned over the counter to hug me. “I am so sorry.” When she let go of the embrace, her eyes were filled with tears.
Through my own tears, and the fatigue, and the emotional drain, I told her that Up Top had given me the tiniest respite in the weeks that I spent with my sister. Everyone here had been so kind. I thanked her for that.
What I didn’t say, because I may not have even been able to articulate it but, instead, just feel it, was that merely coming through the doors and being able to sit in the space, look at art hanging on the brick walls, listen to the chatter, and not have to do or say or even think anything was a beautiful and restorative thing.
The things that linger: the sound of my distant voice, her compassion offered immediately in response, her grace offered in a space that had given me such light for so long.
(I am in the process of rethinking my approach to “subscribe” to this Substack. In lieu of subscribing, I think I may simply ask readers to “Leave a Tip” if they found a piece particularly engaging or thought-provoking, or resonant. I would also like to simply have people subscribe on a monthly basis, if they so choose, rather than annually. In any event, no “Subscribe” button today as I continue to think through these options. I would love to hear your thoughts on subscriptions.)