Reservations about Reaching Out
We knew Steve, who was a chef at a popular local restaurant when we first met him, from our old neighborhood. He later ran his own place, Twisted Olive, which was a favorite of haunt of ours for many years. We had our company Christmas party there the year they opened to help them get established, and then bought cookie trays and charcuterie boards and gift cards from the restaurant for our employees in 2020 to help them weather the holidays through the pandemic. When they added outdoor seating, we had a favorite spot at the corner of the building, with a clear view of everything happening in all four directions at the intersection of Broad and Guetter Streets, including the sunset. Given Ken’s health concerns, that remained our table until the last time we ate out together in the fall of 2022.
When Ken died, Steve offered to host the luncheon after his service at the restaurant as long as I picked up the tip and the bar tab. It was a delicious meal and a lovely gathering, and it was so comforting for me to be in a place where we both felt at home on such a difficult day. Although it was February, Steve set up our outdoor table at the corner too. The gift was a generous and much-appreciated show of support and love.
Steve has had health issues of his own for several years, but since Ken died I could not bring myself to visit him during his frequent hospital stays and risk irritating my own wounds. But last week while still in Spain I got word that his condition had worsened. I had plans to be in Philadelphia on Sunday, so I decided to try to visit that day.
Visiting means I will need to walk into a facility where Ken had scans more than once, including the last ones, when I sat out in the hallway waiting, with a premonition that the news would not be good. It means I will need to stand in a room just like those where we spent so many stressful hours together as Ken recovered from surgery or battled infection. It means I will need to put the needs of someone else before my own, regardless of my apprehensions, and I feel ready to do that.
He is sleeping when I arrive, but I can touch his hand and speak with his wife Sherri. She has been traveling this long road too, but as I remember, there is little sleep for her. She reviews his medical status with me, and agrees how good he looks due to all of the current interventions, measures which will shortly be stopped. She tells me how frustrating it is that he had been much improved, going in to the restaurant for a few hours a day, to now be faced with the knowledge that he won’t go home again. She shows me photographs from the prior day when the room was filled with family and friends sharing a last toast of bourbon together. After an half hour among the monitors and the tubes and the visitors in isolation gowns, I can’t be there any longer. I say my goodbyes, quietly to Sherri with a hug, whispered to Steve with a kiss on his head. I have to walk back through the cancer center hallway, and out into the faint rain, and drive that lonely route home from the hospital that I know all too well.
On that drive I remember a strange occurrence involving the restaurant. Let me start by admitting I have a regrettable anxiety about speaking with strangers on the phone. Fortunately for our partnership, Ken did not. Probably 95% of the dinner reservations over the course of our relationship were made by him. So when I signed up for Open Table, I used my email address, but his name and phone number. Now I could make reservations bypassing human interaction, but if there was an issue, any questions would go to Ken and his phone.
Almost a month after he died, I was out with a friend for coffee, my first social foray in public. We had a good visit, but afterward I went straight home, feeling too exposed out in the land of the living. Soon after arriving, I checked my email and saw a message from Open Table with the subject “Your Reservation Confirmation from Twisted Olive”. The message was sent when the reservation was made at 11:09 am, when I was chatting with Beth, my phone in my bag. “Table for 4 on Friday March 24, 2023 at 5:30 pm for Ken Peoples”.
I immediately text Steve. Has he seen glitches with the app before? I get no response. I forward this to Beth, and she is intrigued. Is today some special occasion for which Ken made reservations months earlier? I laugh. Most of our reservations were made on the spur of the moment, perhaps when Steve would call Ken to let him know there was walleye on the menu that weekend or I had a serious hankering for their Fig and Fennel Old Fashioned. No, March 24 held no significance for us.
Maybe I should take advantage of the error and go. This feels scary, especially since a quiet coffeeshop nearly pushed me over the edge. I call a mutual friend of Steve and ours who is close enough to me to tolerate what may be an awfully weepy dinner, but Terry is unwell and not up for it. Finding someone else seems like too much work, so I log into the app to cancel the reservation. There is nothing there to cancel. Hmm.
So I need to call the restaurant. The man who answers the phone is unfamiliar to me but he must’ve worked the memorial luncheon a few weeks prior because there is a spark of recognition at hearing my name. “Oh, I saw that” he says. “I wondered what was going on…” He says there is a note that the reservation was called in and I tell him it wasn’t by me, while looking at Ken’s phone sitting on the kitchen table. I tell the manager not to expect Ken and I and two of our friends. “Although if he shows up” I joke, “tell him to call me.” The young man laughs nervously but doesn’t answer. Too soon I guess.
I have wondered about this more than once. There could be other explanations, but I like to think it was Ken telling me something, maybe that going out for coffee was a good start but not enough? Maybe to remind me that life is short so I should push through my grief? Maybe teasing me that he is not as far away as he seems? That thought has given me the most comfort, not that he could manipulate things through the ether, but that even now, he would like to take care of me.
Because we all need to be cared for, no matter how independent we like to believe we are. There is a vulnerability in accepting help which grates against our American spirit, but I think it is important for our emotional health to both give and take; to let ourselves be of service to others while allowing others to minister to us as well.
I am glad I went to visit Steve and Sherri even though I was exhausted by the effort. On Tuesday morning I got the group text that he passed away a few hours earlier. Steve is the closest friend I have lost since Ken died and I cry in the car after hearing the news. I will give what I can to Sherri as she finds her way through the wilderness of widowhood, while remembering that I will need support for myself too. Living with death is a tough business. All we can do is be there for each other.