In my latest incarnation I am a waitress in a diner. I can honestly say this is not where I expected to be at this stage of my life, but I'm really trying to go with it.
[NOTE: I am changing the names of the people involved because I figure it's probably not nice to write about someone without clearing it with him or her, first.]
I work for Wendy, who co-owns the restaurant with her sister. Wendy is a shrewd businesswoman who knows her way around the food business. She is at the diner just about every day working the tables with her servers. I'm in awe of her work ethic. She's also tough to work for. Not tough as in difficult to work for, but not a warm fuzzy. This is not the place to work if you need to hear "good job" or "well done" to get by. She speaks her mind and doesn't suffer fools gladly. And there are lots of fools. Myself included, some days. OK. Many days. Most days.
But this is about what happened today.
It's summertime in a college town so it's not wildly busy. We had a few tables of folks when Susie walked in. She's a regular who usually comes in with her son as she appears to be struggling with dementia. Some months back Susie had walked into the restaurant with only a dog leash and told Wendy she'd been out walking her dog, but couldn't tell Wendy where the dog was. Wendy was able to verify that the dog was home, safe and sound, and also took the opportunity to talk to Susie's son to make sure that he knew she was out and about on her own and to express concern about how Susie was doing.
My heart sank a little bit when I saw Susie walk in by herself today as she hadn't come in by herself for quite awhile. Wendy immediately went to talk to her. It turned out that Susie had headed out for a walk and couldn't remember how to get home. But she had found the restaurant.
Wendy escorted her to a seat, brought her a pop, and told Susie that she would take her home. She still had a few tables to finish up with, but she assured Susie that she would get home.
So Susie took a seat at the counter. Sometimes she'd pull out the money she had with her and Wendy would assure her that she'd already paid (I know Wendy gave her the pop) and she could put her money away. It was taken care of. Susie would start talking about being lost and Wendy or I would remind her that she was at the restaurant, she was OK, and that we'd make sure she'd make it home.
What touches me to the core even as I write this is how calm Susie was. She knew the restaurant. She knew she was lost but she felt safe.
This story has two heroes. Just as Wendy turned to me and told me she was going to go get her car as soon as she delivered her last order, our lunch rush arrived. Not a huge crowd, but multiple tables at once so a lot for a single server to handle.
The universe works in mysterious ways. It just so happened that my husband, and all-around good guy, Tom (yes, that's his real name!), happened to be on vacation this week, and just happened to have met some former students at the diner for lunch today. This is how great a guy he is: he didn't bat an eye or hesitate a moment when I asked him to take a woman he didn't know to a home she didn't know how to find.
Wendy quickly stepped-up and gave directions to Susie's house (she didn't know the actual address), and explained that Susie would probably recognize it when she saw it.
Clearly Wendy has taken Susie home before.
And that's when I fell in love with my job.
A few days ago another regular who appears to have cognitive struggles was sitting at the counter. After she left Wendy pointed out to me the note taped to the wall that had her usual order written down in case she came in when Wendy wasn't there.
I'll admit that when I took this job I felt I was doing something less worthwhile than my last work. I mean, I'd gone from working with families in crisis (vaguely professional and more than a little bad-ass) to serving food. But as The Grateful Dead famously said "Once in awhile you can get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right". As I've done before, I've gone from serving people to serving people.
And feeling blessed that it's at a diner that offers up a side-order of grace with that lunch.
