This may look like any ordinary Coors Light beer can. It’s not. Far from it.

This can tells a story.

About five years ago “Coors” I will call him was purchased at Costco with many other friends and piled into a cooler with ice to be taken on a camping trip. He was loaded into the back of our toy hauler with the dirt bikes and unloaded onto dirt ground of our campsite at Hollister Hills.

He was Mike’s choice of beer for camping, but lucky Coors never got opened along with two of his friends. The three came back home after the trip in an empty cooler and were placed in the small fridge that was on top of Mike’s workbench in the garage. There he stayed because Mike rarely drank his beer when he wasn’t camping.

Then Coors’ adventure really began. He was left with his two friends untouched, yet took quite a few rides in his tiny fridge home.

Luckily, he was on top of Mike’s work bench when our house flooded. His home wasn’t ruined and when cleanup began he was loaded up and taken to a storage unit where he sat until I took him to a tiny apartment with me. He stayed there for a few more months until he got another new home in the garage of my rental house. He and his friends saw the light every now and then when I opened the fridge to add and take out drinks, yet he always stayed.

Another move for him over a year later. He found his new permanent home under the workbench in our new garage where he and his buddies have lived for the last three years.

Coors has become the brunt of many jokes throughout the years… Dad’s beer that Mom is never going to drink. The tiny cooler that stays plugged in and cold for only three beers year after year. The beer that will still be there when the boys are twenty-one but it will be way too old to actually drink.

I have obviously become pretty attached to Coors and his friends. I know, it’s silly.

Grief is silly.

There are so many silly items of Mike’s that I can not bear to part with. I can’t tell you why either. For some reason I feel like if I throw out those three old, expired in 2017 cans of Coors Light it would be like I am throwing out a piece of Mike.

Sounds even more silly when I put it into words.

Yesterday, the boys and I were cleaning out the garage. I heard a humming noise by the workbench and saw that it was the tiny fridge plugged in. I looked inside and there sat Mike’s three cans of beer. I have been keeping that tiny fridge cold all these years for only three beers that will never be drank.

I decided to unplug the fridge. I could at least do that and save some electricity. I had no intention to toss the beer though. Then Josh asked if he could throw the beer away. No! I instantly told him. Then I thought about it some more. This is so silly. Mike would think I am being so stupid.

So I told Josh he could throw them away. He took the beers and ran to Jason who was playing basketball and yelled, “Want Dad’s Coors Light?” for I am sure all the neighbors to hear.

They asked if they could pour the beers out and I let them. They weren’t even liquid anymore. They poured out chunks of old expired beer and we all laughed.

They tossed the cans in the big recycling bin outside.

And when the boys went back inside I got empty Coors and brought him back in garage and placed him on the workbench where he will stay.

Because… grief.

I can’t explain why, I know it is silly, I know others don’t understand, I know it will make for more jokes, but that stupid expired beer can is a piece of Mike and full of memories I can’t just throw out.

We will joke and laugh and make fun of that can, of Mike’s bad choice in beer and of me for keeping an empty can and that’s ok with me.

Because it’s good to laugh. It’s good to make grief silly and funny at times. It’s healing to laugh.

And a five year old expired can of chunky Coors Light with a story to tell is pretty funny… and gross, I know.