The Widower’s Rant: Table for Three, Please

I love food. I love to eat. I was blessed with a shrew-like metabolism that unfairly allowed me to indulge in this pleasure (it is finally starting to catch up, so I now eat less). It started early, first lobster at Chart House on Mission Bay, then later, Sushi, was my reward for straight A’s. Yup, you read that right. I connect praise with food. I am just that simple to figure out. For my senior prom, we went to the Carnelian Room on top of the BofA tower in San Francisco. I talked about that dinner far more than the actual date and prom. Unfortunately, there is regrettable photographic evidence of my powder blue tuxedo and my, ahem, freshman date.

I love to prepare food for those I care about. It is the ultimate expression of love to make something of sustenance that is also delicious for others. And I likewise revel in being taken care of. One of my most treasured moments is when C takes a share plate and puts a portion of it on my plate. The feeling of being loved, of being cared for, the compassion, the humanity of the simple gesture of serving someone you care about overwhelms me. Crap, I’m crying right now into my beer. Okay, not beer. Pinot Noir tonight. But I digress.

In one of my many periods of being between jobs, I met with a career consultant (helpfully provided to me by the CEO, who fired me for daring to say the emperor had no clothes). We recapped what I liked about that job. Steady paycheck, good. Benefits good. Flying around the world to slay dragons on on the company’s dime, phenomenal. And the lunches and dinners - I couldn’t stop talking about them. I still can’t. Remind me to tell the story about the “Royal Banquet” in Beijing. My breakthrough white wine experience was at lunch during a sales meeting in Valbonne, France (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). This was in the early phase of my wine journey when I’d only drink red wine. I was helpfully offered a pour of the house white wine. “Oh no, red for me, please,” I instructed. The waiter looked at me with appropriate disdain, noting the Sole Meunière being plated, and said, “You will have the white.” Gotta love the French. That simple Chablis blew. my. mind. “Oh, if that is what white wine is supposed to taste like, bring it on garçon.”

Beth had a bit of a love-hate relationship with food (not Ice Cream, only love). She enjoyed it, but did not enjoy my metabolism. So when our life journey evolved into starting a winery that ended up being on wine lists at some of the most amazing restaurants - she adopted this as her own. She happily dined with me at restaurants. I can only shake my head in wonder at what we have been so fortunate to experience. And she had a willing and bottomless hole of a husband eager to finish her plate. Some of our very favorite memories revolve around the shared experience of enjoying a meal together, with others, in new places, in familiar haunts. The dinner table is the ultimate connector of people, our shared humanity, to sustain each other for another day. Our deep affection for the dinner table is why we started our winery with our partners/friends. That it has taken me to restaurants around the world to share our wine is a gift I can hardly comprehend.

Given my role slaying the dragons and with two little birds to feed at the nest, Beth became the legendary mother neither of us knew was in there. Seriously, we never had any of these important conversations when we got married. Do we have kids? If we did, would one of us stay home or go to daycare? Boy, did that all work out well despite the lack of planning. The first infant that either Beth or I touched was our son. When we brought Curtis home from the hospital, we had no idea what to do. There was a pretty crib up in the nursery, but we were downstairs. So we put him in a laundry basket (if you guessed "Rubbermaid," you win a prize). Beth initially brought her brokerage business home. She was a home office stockbroker in 1990. There's no internet yet. Lotus Signal provided a market feed, and a dial-up modem allowed her to submit trades on a terminal emulator. Talk about a trendsetter.

As one child became two, she sunset her business and focused on being a mom. Raising our family in Woodbridge and then Turtlerock was idyllic. Feeding the brood was something she happily adopted. Well, given how picky one of our brood was, happily was a stretch at times. But Beth was amazing at this. Who knew you could make plain pasta and make a kid happy? Or conversely, sprinkle the least bit of Parm on it and conjure the Tasmanian Devil in a chair. Cutting pancakes in Maui still sends a shiver down my spine.

Over the past decade or so, our roles switched. I began to use prep and cooking as the demarcation between my work time upstairs and being at home time downstairs. This is a benefit of a commute. You have time to switch from work mode to home mode. Working at home means that this transition needs to be fostered somehow. During Covid when we both worked at home, this ritual was even more important. For me, it was Mise en Place and mindfully cutting vegetables. I’ve never been happier than doing prep for Beth and me. I miss it so much. What I wouldn’t give to julienne a goddamn carrot or dice an onion for her right now. Just one more time. Please. I beg. My knives are freshly sharpened, and I’ll clear these tears before I cut. Please. Let me prep for us just one more time. pretty please.

I learned to cook in college. For a year or so before I moved into the Fraternity house, I lived in my own place. I liked cooking for myself. And I really liked to cook for a date, hoping that this might trigger other feelings. This did not work nearly as effectively as you might think. I made Cherry Jubilee Flambé, for goodness sake. In hindsight, it wasn’t the cooking. It was me being the nice guy. A subject for another Rant…

The kids used to accuse me of doing the “hero cooking” for guests to be the center of attention. Okay - that’s true. But over time, they realized how much I enjoy cooking for others. And I got a little better over the years. We didn't obsess about cooking shows, but No Reservations and Someone Feed Phil were welcome diversions. When we saw the movie "The Menu" and the simplicity of The Burger, I set out to recreate it. Every few weeks, I'd try again. Beth would be happy never to eat another steak. She was a content pescatarian. But she loved a good burger. Sitting next to her at our barstools, reveling in the pure sensory delight that this shared burger experience brought both of us...sigh. To be mindful about sharing food is perhaps one of the top two or three experiences humans can have.

I still enjoy cooking and eating out. But wow, things have changed in the last few months. Cooking, for one. But going out?

The day after Beth died, the kids and I walked downtown to have a pizza at our favorite local spot, Diavola. Diavola was a non-trivial factor in why we bought our place in Geyserville. Amazing wood fired pizzas and menu. Beth and I would often walk down and sit at the bar to split a salad, pizza, and a bottle of wine. Good times. So when the kids and I walked into the door of this very familiar and favorite haunt, I mechanically asked, “Table for Three, please,” without giving it much thought. And we were shown to our table. That’s when it hit. Lauren said, “When I heard you ask, ‘Table for Three,’ I nearly lost it.” Indelible proof of the bottomless hole in our family’s life. A Table for Three.

Over the following weeks and months, I’ve had more “Table for Three.” And it hurts a little every time. I still enjoy the company, the food, and the pleasure of sharing, and being served. But the empty fourth chair cuts deeply like a freshly sharpened blade. How can something that has brought me so much pleasure over my life so far hurt me so badly now? Owie. Owie. Owie.

I love eating so much that I’m not about to stop when the table count is an awkward, odd number. Speaking of odd numbers, this conversation rapidly goes deeper. Because Beth is with me in every setting. She’s as embedded in my brain and my heart as much as my memories of Mom and Dad taking me to Chart House to celebrate a report card. Because she was by my side more than twice as long as I lived in my parents’ home. We built a family and an enduring life together. She’s an integral part of who I am today, built on a foundation of forty years. So, let’s be candid. It’s not likely to change much over the next forty years. She is who I am. I am today because of Beth.

I’ve been thinking about what it might mean to be alone for almost eight years now - from the first meeting with the oncologist at UCSF. My scenario-planning brain neatly skipped over the potentially awful hours, days, months, years, and hopefully, decades until an unthinkable event might leave me alone. Like the true only child we all know and love, I fixated on “What does this mean for me?” Sobbing in the shower so Beth wouldn't hear me. Wondering how I would possibly navigate, move forward, and well beyond that, even contemplate the idea that one day, there could be someone else in the passenger seat.

I don’t know how to navigate this. Still waiting for the damn rule book from the mortuary. I’m told it is on backorder. I’ve asked to speak with a manager, or I’ll have to write a sternly-worded letter to the CEO. It worked with Verizon.

Early in this journey I did not want, I decided that I will first learn to be content living alone. Happy at times, missing Beth always, but being content flying solo in my home was one of my early goals. The data supports that this is largely the case. My good days are the vast majority. I'm fortunate that I feel this way today, so early in this life-long marathon. I'm having fun, doing fun things. Even cooking for myself is still enjoyable. Setting a table for one, not so much. But the satisfaction of transforming a few simple ingredients into something that brings a smile to my face and a warm glow in my stomach remains strong.

What I recently came to realize is one day if I'm lucky enough to find someone who wants to spend time with me, it will always be a Table for Three. This seems both difficult and unfair, and maybe that’s why some Widowers either choose to be alone or are unable to open the passenger seat door. It’s crowded inside my head. The unexpected suddenly reminds me of Beth (See above, chopping and burgers). How wonderful and complicated is this? It’s going to be quite a burden to put on someone else. To know that I’ll always be in love with Beth. It’s not a competition thing. But it is a pre-existing condition. To have an unseen force in the room.

Complicated stuff. But I am okay with it. I’m navigating uncharted waters with my heart on my sleeve, my emotions bared for all. I’ve submerged my Japanese “don’t rock the boat” and the Puritanical austerity, hoping for a less rocky route. I realize this is a sawtooth of highs and lows, but my trendline is positive. On the net, I’m in a reasonably content state, especially given how little time has passed since Beth passed. I’m okay.

Thanks for listening. It’s clearly helping me to Rant a bit.

I miss you Beth. I love you forever.

Donald