No Explanation

My table is always set for two.

And yes I have lived alone now for 12 years.

This unusual habit initiated early in our marriage when my bridegroom’s career demanded extensive travel.

During his absence, I set the table nightly for two awaiting his anticipated Friday night return. For some inexplicable reason I saw no reason to change doing that even after his final goodbye fifty seven years later on a memorable September morning.

I am absolutely aware my routine doesn’t really make any sense. However, many practices I cling to defy logical explanation.

Love certainly is beyond definition..

So every evening I put side by side the two cobalt blue place mats we purchased together on a sunny morning in Bermuda. They were among other possessions that traveled from NY to another state the year I relocated.

Friends, wiser than I, had suggested abandoning the round Ethan Allen table and replacing it in. my new home. Occasionally, I find it difficult to defend many of my decisions, so I didn’t attempt to explain, and the items traveled north with me.

The treasured table along with the four green chairs arrived intact as did the china our children had sent us from Manchester. I was so happy I made the decision not to include them in the estate sale when I unpacked.

That was three years ago, when both the world and our lives were ever so different.

Meals are currently being served in small disposable boxes by the amazing staff at Cordia. This is only one of the many vital precautions deemed necessary by the CDC. I am both grateful and immensely impressed by their caring concern and dependability.

Nightly after dinner is delivered, I transfer the food to a brightly colored dinner plate and place it on one of the two blue quilted cotton placemats.

The gesture may be considered possibly symbolic, or foolish, and even more likely, age related.

However, when I dine alone, I don’t feel the anguish of loneliness. I am embraced by the memory of a sunny Saturday in Bermuda shopping in Tillinghams with the man I was blessed to know and love.

The colorful dinnerware is only one of many thoughtful gifts sent from a son and daughter then living in the U.K. The china was a total surprise and has miraculously survived now for four decades.

Of course, I am acutely aware that the other place setting remains pristine and untouched. I know I am physically alone as I dine nightly.

However, I cannot deny a belief that there is another presence; be it that of yesterday or perhaps something quite different than that.

I have never felt a need to question love.