I was feeling a lil lost today, so I asked my girl if she would meet me for lunch. I thought a lil time out of the office, where not much is going on, would clear my brain and blow the memory playback out like dusty cobwebs when a door is opened.
We were sitting in a bright, sunny table near the window. I looked up to notice a gentleman well into his 80's. He shuffled alone into the dining room and sat at a table where I could see him just over LTR's shoulder.
A panini and a bowl of soup, the tray in his hands, shook a lil as it lowered to the table. He plopped into his seat and removed his baseball cap, the name "Lucy" embroidered into the front. He placed it on the table across from him, the name facing him.
Now, I'm a creative type with an imagination that takes me all over the place. One of my favorite games to play, with my pal Mae, was to make up stories of folks in cars next to us or walking by. When I saw him, I got this image in my head that his late wife was Lucy and the hat at the place across from him was a place marker that she was there at lunch.
After filling my head with that... my own sandwich had a hard time making its way around the lump in my throat.
The table next to us was filled with college girls, full of life and wide eyes of what the world looks like to them. The old man, his eyes clouded with age and knowing all to well what the world holds, scanned the room them started in on his meal.
I couldn't help looking over, like a TV in a sports bar, my eyes continued to look at his hunched figure; a slurp of soup, a nibble of panini. I fought the urge to ask him if we could join him.
"He's probably the biggest grump ever." I thought to myself. "He'd probably tell us to buzz off and stop pestering him."
Then I started thinking....my dad will never get to that age. But my mom, god willing, will have a long life. How many tables-for-one are in her future? My mom LOVES to go out to eat. Will she stop doing that, when it's just her?
Can you sit across from an empty chair and feel like you can face another day? No conversation over the meal, no one to offer a bite to taste and trade, or no one arguing who will pick-up the check.
It was everything I could do to keep myself from turning in my seat or staring out the window, so I didn't have to look at him. The raw emotions and helpless feelings rising to the top. I couldn't help him and I couldn't save my dad and I'm 3000 miles away from comforting my mother.
By the time he was done with his meal, he had kicked back in his seat, taken out a cell phone and some paper work and was conducting business of some sort. He sucked his teeth in satisfaction, as he talked to someone on the phone. His laid back air seemed more normal of a business man and less a helpless old man.
I relaxed in my seat a bit. The girls, giggled and picked up their things to go. The old guy gave them a quick look. His "maleness" still alive at his age.
As we left, I didn't even look back at him. Satisfied that he was fine and it was just my overactive imagination. Maybe the hat said "Lucky" and his only chance to get away from his harpy wife was to go grab lunch once and awhile by himself.
Who knows. There isn't much in my daily life that doesn't set me off on a path of emotions. I guess it's just something I need to get use too. Like my mom and a table for one.
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