The Empty Chair

“Old empty chairs are not empty in reality; memories always sit there!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

     We had an empty chair at our Thanksgiving table last year. Bad weather grounded the plane of a friend whose visit was much anticipated, and, I’m sure that disappointment is what caused me to slip into a reverie later in the evening. The trigger was that empty chair.

     I hadn’t thought about it in decades, but for years my parents set an extra place at our Thanksgiving table. It was set it for Roger, a young soldier, who came into their lives just before Thanksgiving in 1944. That year a blizzard brought trains in the Chicago area to a standstill and dashed Roger’s plans to visit his parents before being shipped overseas.

     Roger had just turned 18 when my father, who adopted strays, found him in Union Station and brought him home to spend the holiday with us. We had a full house that year. Roger was relegated to the sofa as the other  beds were taken by my grandmother and an old friend of my mother.

     Roger charmed my grandmother and that was not easy to do. As a matter of fact, my mother, who was not a believer, usually did a lot of praying when Grandma Maude came to visit. Maude, however, took Roger to her heart, and accepted him as her responsibility and fed and entertained  him for the duration his stay. She even made her closely guarded version of wartime soda bread just for him.

     Roger was with us for five days before leaving for duty in the Mediterranean. He did not survive the Battle of Anzio. My parents were affected by his loss, and for years thereafter they set a place for Roger at our Thanksgiving table. I had all but forgotten about that holiday until the empty chair at my own table set memory in motion and reminded me, yet again, how blessed my life has been. As to Maude’s bread, I’d like to think my own need to feed and nurture came from the examples shown in those early years when the troubled world was young and my parent’s lives were still so full of promise. When temperatures drop and snow begins to fall, I hope you have a chair that will trigger memory and warm your heart and hearth. Have the best Thanksgiving ever. Blessings to you all.