On Coffee & Grief

Hidden Sweetness Reserved for People Courageous Enough to Lean In to the Bitterness

Most people tend to avoid processing their grief. For the same reason they avoid drinking their coffee black.

They know that it's bitter.

They dislike the bitterness.

So in an attempt to distract themselves, they load it up with all types of sugar, and cream (even though they know three out of four of us are lactose intolerant).

What most of y’all don’t know is that coffee’s not a bean. Coffee’s a fruit. It's the pit of a cherry. This fruit takes on the flavor of its soil.

The thing is, though, it only lets the people who lean into the bitterness enjoy the sweetness that's on the backend. So if you lean in and drink what you'll find is there are subtle sweetnesses on the back end that are only reserved for people that will lean in.

Grief is the same way.

So many of us are in distraction experiments, where we’re trying to distract our senses from the bitterness of grief with sex and accomplishments and compliments and all types of stuff.

And in an attempt to mask the bitterness of grief, the only thing that we do is disqualify ourselves from the prerequisite leaning into it that unlocks the sweetnesses on the back end.

Coffee is bitter.

Grief is bitter.

But we don't have to stop there. Both of those can be bittersweet.

I wish somebody would have told me I would feel like this….

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If you’re new here

Welcome to Four in the Morning. There’s been quite a few of you that have joined my little curated corner of the internet over these past few months, and I realize I haven’t introduced myself. Over the coming year, you’ll get to know a little bit about me one week at a time. What you’ll soon find out is that I love storytelling and metaphors. Anyone that knows me, knows that’s my dialect of choice. Above, you’ll find the one metaphor that has shaped me (and this newsletter) more than any other in my recent history. Coffee.

The making and consuming of coffee, at Four in the Morning, has become something of a sacred ritual for me. It reminds me of that bitter & sweet, honesty & hope, joy & sorrow aren’t parallel streets—they intersect. I remember when I was dreaming up Four in the Morning, my friend Lukas heard my rambling and meandering and said, “John it sounds like what you’re saying is that every new day begins in the dark.”

That tagline stuck with me. It wasn’t just something I knew I would remember.

This phrase was one that I’d never forget.

Lukas gave me that phrase while taking care of his sweet wife was dying from cancer. I’ve always been in awe of people like Lukas who so (seemingly) effortlessly metabolize their suffering into something beautiful.

You are the recipients of that beauty today. You honor him by sharing something beautiful with someone grieving in desperate need of it.

Thanks for being a part of this group. I hope you enjoy the art above. Shout out to Mark Lopez @ Silkworm.Studio for the animation & Swoope for the music and allowing this to be the intro for his soundtrack to We Go On, the most honest & hopeful album you’ll listen to all year.

Thanks again for stopping by. See y’all in the comments, or next week at the newsletter if you feel like you're too good to say something below.

Peace,

John O

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