Those nights were what gave me the strength to move on.
I looked at my six children sitting around the table and thought that, someday, when they were older, they would understand everything I had sacrificed to keep us together.
Then they grew up.
The university led to professional careers.
The races led to marriages, children of their own and houses in different states.
At first they called often.
Then the calls were made shorter.
The visits became increasingly difficult to organize.
Maybe next month, Mom.
“I’m sorry, the job has been crazy.
“We’ll be going soon.
I never complained.
I told myself that that was simply what happened when children built their own lives.
They still loved me.
They were just busy.
At least, that’s what I wanted to believe.
So when he got close to my 89th birthday, I just asked for one thing.
Nothing about a big party.
No neighbors.
No friends.
No expensive gifts.
I just wanted to see my six kids sitting around the same table again.
When I asked him, they promised they would come.
That was enough for me.
My birthday morning I started preparing the house.
I cooked the dishes they liked the most when they were kids. I took out the good tableware I hadn’t used in years. I ironed the cloth napkins.
Then I put seven places on the table.
Six for them.
One for me.
At five in the afternoon everything was ready.
I wore my most beautiful dress and waited.
It was an hour.
Nobody’s here.
I told myself they were probably caught in traffic.
It was two hours.
Still nothing.
I looked at my phone.
No message.
No missed call.
I tried calling them.
No one answered.
When the fourth hour came, I stopped pretending that they were simply behind schedule.
The food had cooled.
The house was quiet.
And the six chairs were still empty.
I sat alone at the head of the table, holding against my face one of the napkins I had ironed that morning while crying.
I couldn’t stop looking at those empty chairs and remember when my children were young and arguing who I could sit closer to me.
I had spent my whole life making sure they never felt forgotten.
