After Margaret passed, I stopped setting the table for two.
The house got too quiet. Too still. But Samson… Samson didn’t let the silence swallow me.
He started sitting in her spot every mealtime—same corner of the table, head tilted, tail gently thudding against the floor like he was keeping time with my breath.
At first, I laughed. Then I started sharing.
A bit of scrambled egg here, a spoonful of mashed potatoes there. We kept each other company.
But a few weeks ago, something shifted.
Samson started whimpering every time I put the plate down.
Not for more food—but as if something was missing.
So I pulled out an old box of Margaret’s things.
Inside was a torn piece of a placemat… and a note she’d scribbled before her last hospital stay.
“Feed him at your table. He always knows when you’re lonely.”
And beneath it… a faded photo.
One I didn’t take.
Of Samson, sitting beside Margaret—watching her smile as she fed him from my plate.
I stared at that photo for what felt like hours.
Margaret, in her favorite blue cardigan, hair wrapped in a loose bun, cheeks softer than I remembered. And Samson—young, ears perked, eyes locked on her with the kind of love only dogs understand.
I don’t remember that moment.
But she did.
She made sure to capture it. To tuck it away in a box I hadn’t touched since the week she passed.
That note…
“Feed him at your table. He always knows when you’re lonely.”
She knew I’d lose my appetite.
She knew the silence would creep in.
And somehow, she knew Samson would stay—watching, waiting—until I let him back into the space where love used to live.
The next day, I didn’t just share a few bites.
I set the table for two.
I pulled out her chair—Samson’s chair now—and laid the old placemat, frayed corner and all. I even filled a bowl just for him, scrambled eggs and sweet potato, the way she used to sneak them to him under the table when she thought I wasn’t looking.
And for the first time in months, I spoke aloud during breakfast.
Just little things.
“Rain’s coming later.”
“We’re out of butter.”
“Remember when you chewed her slipper, and she still kissed your nose goodnight?”
Samson listened like it mattered. Like he understood. Maybe he did.
His tail tapped the floor. Soft, steady, like a heartbeat I’d forgotten I still had.
That night, I found more of her notes. Tucked inside cookbooks. Folded into her robe pocket. Scraps of paper, some just a sentence:
“If you’re sad, bake something.”
“He’s not just a dog, you know. He’s your shadow.”
“Please don’t eat alone.”
Each one hit like a whisper across time.
She wasn’t just preparing for goodbye. She was building a map—leading me back to life through little instructions stitched with love.
Last week, I took Samson to the park. The one Margaret liked but always said was “too muddy for a Sunday walk.”
He stopped under a willow tree, sat, and stared at the bench like he expected her to be there.
And maybe… in his world, she was.
Maybe she never really left him.
Maybe she never really left me.
Tonight, we ate pasta. He got his plain, mine had too much garlic. I spilled sauce on the table, and for a second, I swore I heard her laugh in my head.
Samson looked up, wagged once, then gently rested his head on my knee.
That’s when I knew.
He hadn’t been hungry.
He’d been waiting.
Waiting for me to come back to the table.
To stop pretending I was fine.
To remember that love doesn’t end—it just changes seats.
Life Lesson:
Grief doesn’t always knock you over in loud, crashing waves. Sometimes, it’s a quiet chair left empty. A bowl untouched. Silence where laughter used to echo.
But healing doesn’t ask for grand gestures.
Sometimes, it just asks you to set the table again.
To feed the one who stayed.
And to speak aloud—even when no one answers.
If this story touched your heart, share it.
Someone out there might still be eating alone, not knowing their shadow is waiting too.
🐾 Love doesn’t leave the room—it just waits for you to come back.
