Spare Me the Bad Table

It happens sometimes at a restaurant where three or four couples are dining together.  I look up from my soup to find myself alone at our table, the others at the salad bar or in the washroom, perhaps.

Or it could be at a dance, nine or ten of us sharing a table, and I’m suddenly sitting by myself while the others are up dancing, or maybe table-hopping.

The tiresome jokes flow at these moments, naturally.  Some wise guy will ask in a loud voice if I’m at the table tonight with all my friends.  Or another wit will wonder if I said something to offend everyone at the table.

I laugh, of course, perfunctorily—but somewhat puzzled, too—for it is curious that this crops up with me so frequently.  Is it something I might have said?  Or is it just a bad table?

It may happen to others, too, I suppose, but not when I’m around.  And although the jokes are stale from repetition, they do take my mind away from a somewhat more sombre realization—that someday, I know not when, one of us in my circle of friends will, indeed, be left alone.

We’re at an age where many of the things we used to take for granted are likely not in the cards for us anymore.  How many of us will purchase a new house, for example, with a twenty-year mortgage?  How many more new cars will we buy?  Do we really care if the 2056 Olympic Games are held in this city or that?  Are hair transplants or facelifts really such an attractive option now?

I’m not yet at the stage where I won’t buy green bananas (another old joke) or make plans for a holiday cruise two years from now.  But those days are coming.

Aging has been both a simple, yet so mysterious, a process.  Simple, because it crept up on me without any conscious intent on my part.  I started school, graduated, married, and became a father.  With my wife, I raised two children, sadly bid them adieu when they embarked upon the world, and exulted in the joys of grandparenthood when they began their own families.  Eventually, I retired and reached out for new and exciting pastimes.

Granted, it took years for me to do all this, and the work was palpable while I was doing it.  But when it finally hit, my seventy-fifth birthday seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.  Getting there was a simple matter of waiting.

But aging is mysterious, too, because so many odd things transpire.  For instance, although I feel like the same person I always was, my friends look so much older now.  Occasionally, when I happen to encounter one of them unexpectedly, I might see an old man or woman at first glance—only to realize belatedly it’s my friend.  I suspect the same thing is true in reverse when they have a chance run-in with me.  We’re all too polite to tell each other that, though.

A lyric from the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, seems to capture it:  I don’t remember growing older, when did they?

A few years ago, I underwent two surgeries, not age-related, and spent several months in follow-up visits with the medical people who treated me.  When reading my files one day, I was quite surprised to discover a letter from a referring physician.  After the usual introductory paragraph, the letter stated, “This elderly gentleman presents with symptoms congruent with…”

My attention was riveted on those first three words.  I thought I had opened someone else’s file!  Elderly?  Surely not I!  And yet, at the tender age of sixty-four, it was true—at least from the perspective of those young professionals.

And so, here we are, I and all my friends, firmly ensconced at the seniors’ table.  None of us talks morbidly about the inevitable end of our lives, however; more likely, we’re comparing our golf scores, sharing the latest stock market activity, or showing off pictures of our grandchildren.  We’re a pretty happy lot, all told.

One of our gang, a retired funeral director, jokes that everything is foreordained, anyway.  “My successors are gonna get us all in the end,” he says with a wink.

We laugh, but I do think about the end-stages of life, just as I think about finding myself alone at that table in the restaurant, or at the dance.  A close friend from boyhood never got to experience that aloneness, dying before his time a year ago, surrounded by family and embraced in the thoughts of his many friends.

My parents, on the other hand, lived well into their nineties—not a guarantee of longevity for me, I grant you, but a pretty nice genetic gift.  At the end of her life, my mother had outlived her husband, all her siblings, and all her friends.  Despite the visits from children and grandchildren, I know her final years were painfully lonely. 

We cannot know the hour or manner of our own passing, so it’s futile to fret about it.  Yet I occasionally ponder which would be best—to go first, before everyone else has left the table, or be the last one sitting there.  So many of the joys of life spring from those at the table with us, family and friends, and so much would be missing without them.

Unable to decide with any certainty which option I’d prefer, I waver from one to the other, depending on my mood.  Vacillation can be a comfort.  And truth be told, there probably is no definitive answer to be found; what will be, will be. 

But honestly?  If I had to choose?  Well, I don’t think I want to find myself alone at that final, bad table, the last person there, wondering in vain if it was something I said.

_{© J. Bradley Burt 2022}