Dining Alone

Greg and I were together for forty-two years. In those years, probably ninety-five percent of our meals were eaten in restaurants or as take-out meals. Our work schedules weren’t conducive to meal preparation at home. Add in our propensity to decide at the last minute what we’d like for supper, and meal planning became an impossibility. So, we were familiar with what restaurants in several towns served our favorite foods, available at a moment’s notice.

Most of the time we were together at meal time. Since Greg’s death I have eaten out by myself several times, in different towns and in different types of restaurants. When I mention this to other widows, most of them say they either can’t face eating out alone, or it took a few years before they were comfortable eating out alone.

I was mulling this over recently and remembered that even before Greg’s death, I dined out alone several times a month. Sometimes Greg was in another town on business or golfing. Other times he’d be finished with his work for the day and go home before I was ready for an evening meal.

(Don’t misinterpret that previous statement. Greg worked hard and worked long hours. My part of the business was time-consuming. A job it might take me a week to get ready to print, Greg could print in a couple of hours – just the nature of the beast.)

So, I often dined out alone. At McDonald’s. At Betty’s OK Country Cooking. At Tray’s Garden. At Taco Bell. At Wendy’s. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. I never thought anything about it; it was just the way a particular day happened to go.

Yes, I would prefer dining out with Greg sitting at the table with me. We might discuss the events of the day or what we’d like to do on the weekend. If we had had a hard day of tiring and tedious work we might sit quietly, lost in our thoughts but still together, letting the stress of the day dissipate and our moods lighten.

I do spur of the moment dining out, lock the door at work and by the time I get the truck started I am wanting to eat supper in a restaurant instead of at home. Yes, it is sad to eat alone, without Greg’s presence, but I do dine out alone.