Spitting Llamas & This Son of Ours

 

            Min, our lives-in-with-us son with challenges, accompanied us to a medical appointment on a day we couldn’t provide him with a caregiver locally.

            We told him, “We’ll make it worth your while and take you to the Crazy Llama Café.”

            “What do they sell there?”

            “All kinds of coffee specialties,” I said, “but I’m sure they’ll have something you like. I think they have baked goodies. We’ve only been through the drive-thru, but we’ll go inside today because we’ve got extra time before my appointment.”

            “Do they really have llamas?” he asked, being an avid lover of all-things-animal.

            “Well, I suppose they’d have at least one.” I smiled. “A crazy one maybe?”

            Brian pulled into the café lot and parked the car. We hugged our coats around us on this bitter, cold day.

            “Llamas spit, you know,” Min said as he carefully treaded up the icy walkway to the door. “Do you think they spit on the floor?”

            I laughed. “Hmm, maybe. Better watch where you walk in there.”

            Inside he looked down and about, surmising it was safe.

            It was a quaint shop, streamlined and stylish with hand-thrown ceramic Crazy Llama mugs lined up for sale.

            “May I help you,” a coffee barista called from behind the counter.

            Min turned to me, looking a bit confused. “I thought monks worked here.”

            “What gave you that idea?” I asked, knowing full well Min can come up with rather unusual and often creative (ahem) ideas.

            “Don’t they have something to do with llamas?”

            “You’re confusing llamas with dalai lama, I guess,” I said in a hushed tone.

            “Oh. Maybe monks just run coffee shops in Asia.”

            “I doubt they have jobs outside their…”

            “…monastaries?” Min interrupted.

            “Right.”

            Brian and I ordered an uncomplicated coffee and decided we’d split a cinnamon bun.

            Min chose a large chocolate chip cookie. Not noticing a beverage choice he liked, he passed on that.

            We sat at a small café-style table and noted the you-can’t-miss-those large, artsy photographed images on canvas of llamas, spaced on the walls surrounding us.

            “I like the llama pictures,” Min said between bites of his cookie with crumbs about his lips. “Do those llamas spit?”

            “Only in the drinks,” I said with a snicker. I looked over the menu board again. “Oh, they have hot cocoa. Want one of those?”

            Min scrunched his eyebrows and glared. “No thank you!”

            Softish ’80’s music played, setting the mood even more.

            I commented, “Nice music. Not blaring or foul.”

            “It’s nor,” Min said.

            I bobbed my head back, “It’s what?”

            “Nor.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            Brian chimed in. “He means noir. A style.”

            “That’s actually a ‘thing?’”

            “Yes,” said my husband, shaking his head a bit over this bizarre conversation, then going back to his llama-spit-free coffee.

            (I may be the writer in the family, but he’s the speller and wordsmith, with a larger vocabulary than mine any day of the week. Apparently, our son is in his dad’s league too with his addition of “noir.”)

            Min chimed in. “Noir is like a guy playing saxophone in a window and the whole thing is black and white. You know, like movies made from black and white film and very serious. Dah-dah-dah,” he sang monotoned in a low, saxaphony way.

            I couldn’t help but laugh! “Oh my! You just know so much about so many things. You’re a wonder!”

            “It’s what makes me special.” He said, smiled, and finished eating his cookie in his very dry mouth.

             Oh, Min, there’s so much about you that makes you special! Okay. You have a special needs label, but you’re more than what education and society have placed on you. And, even though you are child-like in almost all your ways, you’re funny, good (MOST of the time), helpful, kind. You have the heart of a servant, and perhaps that’s what makes us most proud.

            So, here we are in your birthday month! The big 31! Another birthday we never dreamed you’d reach with the physical challenges your body carries. Yet God has granted you these days and ordained them for His purpose as you’ve given your heart and life to Him.

            You’re a jewel in God’s Crown, a gem showing forth His Glory—in your own special way. Yes, that’s so very special too!

            Blessed happy birthday to you, you “crazy non-spitting (at least we hope not), very classy, noir (maybe—maybe not) llama-and-every-other-type-animal lover—except maybe geese! (But that’s another story.)

                                                                      With love always,

                                                                       Dad & Mom

 

When He cometh, when He cometh to make up His jewels,

All His jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.

 

(Refrain) Like the stars of the morning, His bright crown adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown.

 

He will gather, He will gather the gems for His kingdom;

All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His loved and His own. (Refrain)

 

Little children, little children, who love their Redeemer,

Are the jewels, precious jewels, His loved and His own.

 

(Refrain) Like the stars of the morning, His bright crown adorning,

They shall shine in their beauty, bright gems for His crown.

 

(from the hymn When He Cometh by William O. Cushing, 1856, public domain)

#llamas #coffee #specialneeds #birthday #purpose #Godsgem