MADRID. SPAIN.- The truth is that I didn't usually drink so much coffee, just enough to dye the white of that glass of milk at breakfast. My brother was a milkman, who looked like a bottomless pit. His bulging belly button, the size of a peseta, was said to be due to his constant crying, but the truth is that he was insatiable, and as a small, chubby child he managed to assimilate 25 bottles a day.

Now I feel like writing about that because my mother is the woman of my life, and today, precisely today, my younger brother has a birthday, at 37 years old; although as time went by I have been the little one, The Girl, for him, for my father, for my mother. I dedicate this text to her and Pipo, for the joy of celebrating together the anniversary of their birth, which already begins with a sip of coffee.

I did not share this fascination with milk, unlike my cousins on Bertha's side, grandmother Verena's sister, with whom we met almost every summer vacation in the countryside. They did not go to sleep without drinking warm milk from a little metal jug.

I didn't feel like any of that, I didn't even need to put something in my mouth before going to sleep, although my grandmother tried to stuff us with delicacies all the time: mango smoothie, cherimoya smoothie, lemonade, dulce de leche, bread with sauce, the sauce from chicken fricassee, guarapo (sugar cane juice), raspadura (panela) with sesame seeds, matahambre, yes, that's what Uncle Tino called that kind of bread made with yuca dough, coconut and honey baked on a zinc tile placed on top of the wood stove...

For me, for a long time, coffee with milk was just part of breakfast. I don't remember when I started drinking more of that blackish elixir, probably when I started working and accompanying the laundry of my mother, a hard-core coffee maker. However, when I got pregnant, I rejected it a little. I had the most delicious pregnancy in the world. My daughter didn't cause me any discomfort: I didn't have nausea or vomiting, I didn't lose my appetite, nor did I have heartburn, not even in the last trimester, when it is said that the baby's hair causes indigestion.

The only thing I refused was coffee, although I tolerated it for breakfast because I have never been able to drink milk without coffee. Because of how harmful it was, I tried to drink milk alone at night, but as soon as it went down my throat, there was a barrier that refused to budge. To solve this, my mother made me guava jam to mix with it, and that was life itself. Jam with cold milk, like my grandmother used to make it years before in that little country house, and we drank it at our leisure. After giving birth, little by little I began to get the taste for it again. Savoring the morning sip.

The sip is that first warm sip that, as it travels deeper on your tongue, activates the palate and goes down, caressing the entire channel that leads to the stomach. You feel that warm journey capable of activating your senses. At least it makes me whole again.

I miss those sips in the morning, mid-morning, and mid-afternoon a lot these days because my mom is in charge of that coffee. It is a dawn ritual and then an excuse to be together, for a while, cup in hand, talking about anything that at the moment can be anything, about some trivial matter that leads to aspects that cut across the lives of a family.

Coffee is not just a drink; it is a bond. It connects us to a shared routine that transcends the simple act of drinking. It is in those moments of communion that we share laughter, memories, and dreams. The house is filled with the aroma of freshly made coffee, and it is as if that smell embraces us, reminding us that, despite the distance and time, there is always something that unites us.

While the time comes to return home, I try to make that first coffee here, so far away, be invigorating and tasty. I think of the packages of different brands in the markets, and coffee varieties that I feel like trying with her one of these mornings. Because beyond the taste, it is the act of sharing that really matters. A way to keep that connection alive, to feel that, although far away, I am still close to my mother and those moments that I miss so much.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez