My First Tea Memory

I remember the night after my aunts funeral. My eyes red and swollen, drooping from exhaustion. My sore feet chilled by our cold apartment floor. My mother, brother, and I couldn’t sleep. We sat on our floor, still in our black clothes, silence filled our home. My mother rose and went to the kitchen, I watched her as she boiled water and set out three coffee mugs. She searched the cupboards and pulled out a box of sleepytime tea. I remember the side of the box showed a bear in their white nightgown and red cap, sitting in a comfy green chair in front of a warm fireplace. My mother pulled out three tea bags and placed one in each cup. When the water was boiled she poured it down into each cup, submerging each bag as a cloud of steam rose and disappeared into the air. She handed me and my brother a cup telling us to let it sit for a bit before drinking it. I didn’t mind waiting. The heat from the cup on my hands seemed to relax my mind. I peered inside my cup and observed as color leaked from the bag, blending into the water until the whole cup was filled with a warm golden brown. As I drank my tea, I felt it gently coat my throat. The liquid seemed to reconnect each part of me as it slid down my body. One by one I became whole again. My body wasn’t made up of a bunch of tired, sore, separate limbs, and my mind wasn’t in tangents. Within moments of drinking, my brother cracked a joke, my mother laughed, I made a funny face, and everything was back to normal. I realize now that it wasn’t a good quality tea and I have no idea where the ingredients came from, but it didn’t really matter then. It was the act of drinking, and who I was drinking with that made it important.  I don’t remember any flavors, only that it tasted hot and it momentarily healed my family and within the hour, I was falling to sleep.