i wonder where your prego jar is.

every thursday morning john would walk in with his prego jar- he'd drop it off to get washed and it'd get passed to me; i'd fill it up and pass it back to him. he'd hold the lid and no matter what the consistency or temperature or age of the oatmeal, john never complained.

my dear friend peter was a bit off during our morning shift yesterday. he said something like, "we come here week after week and serve and laugh and tease each other and drink tea after cleaning the bathrooms. we do it so often that it's become routine. we've become numb to the reality that it's really cold outside today. and it's raining. and there's a lot of Crazy around here. and deep, deep brokenness. and things aren't right because john is gone."

i found out john died of cancer right before the new year. john had snow colored hair and tan leathery skin from his many cigarettes. and he had a soothing voice, so quiet. always pleasant, even in the last days that i saw him, limping from one end of the room to the other.

it's hard to shake this sense of sadness.