Empty Chairs

I walked out of my gym room tonight after my workout and glanced across the living room. The other five members of my family were perched around our old six seater table giggling hysterically as they played a raucous game of poker.

A wave of emotion came over me as I surveyed the scene, I couldn't help but smile as I watched my husband trying desperately to convince a rather skeptical Mr 14 that “in this instance I'm pretty sure I only need four cards to make a straight!” 

They all looked so happy.

The empty seat at the dining table of course was mine. It hits me sometimes when I see scenes like this that if things had gone differently back in May 2015 that the table would always look this way; full of family, fun and personalities and just one chair left empty, full only of the memories that had once sat there.

They looked so good sitting there, they looked like a complete unit, even without me. I guess they have had to be so many times when I have been absent, unwell, hiding in my bed under the blankets or miles away in a hospital for months at a time.

Even now that I am doing much better, I still find myself feeling like a guest in that chair. I set the table for five most nights, my eating disorder prevents me from eating the same foods that I cook for my family and although I sit with them while they eat, I have become an outsider of my own making.

Right now I am supposed to be having a shower after my work out, but rather than having an urge to shower quickly so that I can go and take my rightful place at the table I am instead typing this on my phone while lying on my bed in the dark listening to the sounds of chinking poker chips, wild accusations of cheating and maniacal laughter.

As dark clouds slowly build in my unquiet mind, I find myself gravitating towards the thinking that they would have been just fine without me and one day they may still have to be. It would have been over a year and a half now, the heaviest parts of grief would have slowly subsided, life would have gone on and yes that chair would sit silent and empty, but realistically, for a long time it already has been.