Last Sunday, I set the table for six, roasted the chicken, baked the pie—and still ended up staring at five empty chairs.

I’m Martha, seventy-two years old, widow for almost a decade. Every Sunday for as long as I can remember, I’ve made dinner. Not just food—dinner. The kind where the tablecloth comes out, the silverware shines, and the smell of roast chicken fills every corner of the house.

When my children were young, Sunday Dinner was sacred. Ellen would sneak spoonfuls of mashed potatoes before grace. Jacob would fight for the biggest slice of pie. Even when money was tight, there was laughter, noise, crumbs on the floor. I didn’t mind. It meant family.

Now the house is quiet enough to hear the clock tick.

I still cook. Old habits die hard. I peel carrots, stir gravy, fold napkins. I lay out six plates—mine, and five more for the family I raised. But the truth is, most weeks those plates stay clean.

Ellen texts me on Saturday night: “Sorry, Mom, big case, maybe next week.”
Jacob doesn’t bother with excuses. Just silence.
And Emily, my sixteen-year-old granddaughter, once sat at the table scrolling her phone without looking up until I said her name three times.

Last Sunday, I went all out. Chicken, biscuits, apple pie with lattice crust. I thought, maybe this week will be different. But at 5:00, I sat down alone. One chair occupied, five chairs empty. I ate slowly, pretending they’d walk in any minute. They never did.

After dinner, I carried the heavy pot back to the kitchen. My foot slipped on the rug. I went down hard. The chicken pot tipped, gravy spilling like a dark river across the floor. My hip screamed, and I couldn’t stand.

I lay there all night. The phone was in the other room. No one called, no one came. Just me, the cooling smell of chicken, and the hum of the refrigerator.

It was the neighbor, Mrs. Gonzales, who found me the next morning when she came to return my casserole dish. She gasped, called the ambulance, held my hand while the paramedics lifted me.

At the hospital, Ellen arrived first. Her heels clicked on the tile, her face pale. “Mom, why didn’t you call?”
I looked at her and whispered, “Why didn’t you come?”

Jacob stood in the corner, arms folded, eyes wet. Emily cried quietly into her sweatshirt.

When they brought me home two days later, the house still smelled faintly of chicken. The table was bare, chairs tucked in neat. For the first time, I didn’t want to set them again.

But then, something changed. That Sunday, Ellen showed up at noon, apron in hand. Jacob came with a bag of groceries. Emily put her phone away and helped me knead dough. We sat down together, all six chairs filled. The food wasn’t perfect—the biscuits burned, the pie crust broke—but I didn’t care.

Because finally, what I had been waiting for wasn’t food on plates. It was people in seats.

Don’t wait for empty chairs to remind you what matters. Jobs, deadlines, screens—they all fade. What lasts is showing up. If your mother is alive, sit at her table while you still can.