I love The Fumbally. In Dublin I went multiple times a week, sometimes for breakfast. I’d order the same every time–eggs and a flat white, for here please–and I’d sit with my Bible and slowly savor everything. But what kept me coming back was the pure atmosphere of love. Often people would walk in and enfold someone in a warm and tight embrace. I’ve never seen so much love in a café.

As an introvert, especially on days off, it is not my nature to converse with someone who’s serving me coffee or breakfast. But I grew to love that place because of the people in it, and I learned names and chatted and tried to show them how much I cared for them.

Rashel was one of those people.

Yesterday was hard. Rashel Winn, of The Fumbally, passed away on her 29th birthday. She had cancer.

Sadness and grief have been weighing heavily on me since I heard. Since I learned of her cancer she was always covered in my prayers. And I can’t believe she’s gone.

I barely knew her; she was my barista. She was ‘just’ my barista, you might say. But there is more to it.

When trying to reconcile why my heart hurts so much to lose someone I hardly knew, I see now how I have been deeply moved by the love and care that was poured into every aspect of The Fumbally. The food is amazing and the coffee is the best of the best.

 

Beyond that, the people who work there are a family, and the people who inhabit those mismatched chairs share a common desire for love and excellence over convenience and efficiency. It is an art form, putting your soul into something to give another soul, to be nourished and refreshed by it. There is a fellowship around food and coffee that cannot be recreated. Food unites us and we become better simply by living alongside each other.

Such a personal place, The Fumbally became somewhere I fit in, because everyone was so comfortable in their individuality. It’s not about being hipster, because you could call it that. It’s a place where you can be yourself, and that is good enough. You can wear your trendy athleisure clothes and Nikes and matte nude lipstick, or you can wear Birkenstocks and daisies and big glasses, and regardless, you will belong.

I found a home at The Fumbally I never realized I was looking for.

I flourished as a person because of my time there. And it could not have been if it weren’t for people like Rashel. The first time I talked to her, I came in to ask about barista courses and we ended up talking for almost twenty minutes. It was so fun to have someone from home there; she had lived in Seattle for a while so she just ‘got’ me.

She was wonderful. She was hilarious and sweet and bright and a joy to say hello to those mornings. Her coffee was amazing. She made me a coffee once that tasted of forest berries and black tea and it bowled me over because it was so deliciously unexpected.

The last coffee I had there was made by Rashel. She had just been to Italy for barista camp and created an amazing peacock rosetta in my flat white.

I thank God for that place. I miss it constantly and have even dreamed multiple times of being there again. My heart hurts so much for those who knew her as part of the Fambully, and I look forward to the day I go back home to heavy wooden tables and coffee cups full of love.