After the loss, where do you sit? How do you fill the empty space?
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We ate dinner at the antique oak table. Vic’s stepfather had given it to us when we bought our home in 1972. We each had our place—me closest to the kitchen, David to my left, Anthony across the table, and my husband Vic to my right. Vic and I had the sunset views, but the kids didn’t mind.For fifteen years, Vic wasn’t home three nights a week, so the kids and I had dinner without him. No one sat at Vic’s place.We made it a point to have dinner together, give thanks, and share food and the day’s events. I made a big salad and a vegetarian entrée, often Italian with vegetables from our garden. My family loved pasta. I never convinced them of the superiority of brown rice, although I tried.
I couldn’t bring myself to sit at the dining room table. I didn’t use the table on the deck either, since we had our places there, too.
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After our sons left home, we clung to our habit, Vic in his spot and me in mine. When David and Anthony visited, they still had their preferred spot at family dinners.
The plan began to crumble after Vic was diagnosed with cancer. I still prepared and shared dinner with him in his hospital room, on the stem cell transplant ward, or anywhere he had to be. Then that disintegrated, too.
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“Don’t try to talk me into eating,” Vic said quietly.
I hadn’t tried, had I? OK, maybe a little. “I made your favorite. Would you like a little snack?” He was sick. He suffered. I wanted to comfort him with food he loved, and his good appetite comforted me. No appetite was an alarming sign among many bad signs.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll make food you like. Then you can choose whether or not you want to eat it.”
During that last month, he sometimes asked for minestrone soup or tapioca pudding. I warmed small servings in his favorite sapphire bowl. More often, he couldn’t eat, so I sat by myself, tense, silent, and sad. It felt wrong to eat when he couldn’t. Everything felt wrong.
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After Vic died, I couldn’t bring myself to sit at the dining room table. I didn’t use the table on the deck either, since we had our places there, too. I ate on a stool in the kitchen or on the back porch or on the floor by the wood stove when winter came. I shoveled food in like a barbarian and often forgot to pray. Food filled the hole of longing for Vic and family, for silly jokes, shared pleasures, and everyday stories from people I loved the most.
For years, I avoided the dining room table except when I had visitors. Recently, I practice sitting in different places. First David’s, then Anthony’s, then Vic’s. Like Goldilocks, I want the chair that’s just right.
I remember to give thanks now—for my food, for Vic, and for the many meals we shared—but I still haven’t found my new place.
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Have you lost someone you ate meals with for years? A death, a break-up, a child leaving home? How did that change your eating patterns? Was it a relief or was it traumatic?
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Originally published: Elaine Mansfield.com
Image: Getty
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Possibly the best things we had ever bought for our kid’s bedrooms is a
student style raised bed together with room for
a study space underneath. The children love sleeping on the top bunk, we like that we
are taking advantage of the space.
I read this poignant piece when it was first published on your blog, Elaine. Now I will post it on my Facebook page.
Thanks so much, Marian. I love the way this piece is getting around.
Leah, I hope seeing sorrow in a different light is helpful. I know I need to look from all perspectives and even find the good parts of the situation.
Thank you, Elaine. Reading this and other writings make me think of sorrow in a different light.
Thank you, Leah. I hope seeing in a different light is helpful. I like to look at loss from all vantage points possible.
Hi Steve, Sigh…. I get those images. Good idea to make the big changes you need to make. I’m interested in your experience with moving. I thought I’d move, but I’m still in the house where we lived, the family home. When I travel, I find I miss my husband more than when I’m home. That’s a surprise. But after quite a few years, I still feel his absence every day. I think of it as just another kind of love, or as I commonly say to myself and others, “Love and Grief are a package deal.” Sometimes I think… Read more »
Yeah… been there. Ive only ever used our dining table twice since my wife died four years ago. Never used the drinks cabinet, had to get rid of the bed. I couldnt stay in a house full of memories so I had to sell it and move away. Im still not sure Ive found my place either Really I know what I should do is sell everything, absolutely everything and completely start again somewhere else totally different. Only then will I be content with the memories that I want and need rather than physical objects that dont always hold good… Read more »
My husband, Bruce, was killed in a bizarre bicycle-automobile collision 6 years ago. We used to sit 2 & 2, with Bruce and me stationary, diagonally from eachother, and each week, the table-setter sat next to Bruce. After he died, his empty spot was just too painful, so both girls sat on the other side of the table. Our two girls are now 22 and 19. I’m usually here alone. The kitchen table is covered with papers, books, mail, etc, etc, etc. The Big Bed has been really difficult for me. Bruce was a flip-flopper, so the bed was 200… Read more »
Dear Carol, I’m so sorry about your husband’s death and the very difficult and sudden way he died. There are so many togetherness patterns as families or as a twosome that fall apart. The bed is hard, cooking is a challenge, and so many other ordinary daily things I didn’t think so much about when he was here. I hope being away helps with your healing journey, but then there is the new sadness of no garden. I get it. I create small rituals to help me through all these things. If you look at my bio (just above comments),… Read more »
I could relate to this story about where to sit at the table when the man who sat at its head is gone. Beautifully written.
Thank you, Jill. So many of us can relate to losing someone who is usually at the dining room. It brings me back to when my dad died when I was a teenager. Empty chair…