Post 52: The Empty Wedding Table
Why can’t I write something so beautiful that I can put down my pen and rest, knowing I’ve done enough?
A nostalgia funk has circled me—cozy memories pressing close, and wearing me out. Maybe it’s the tiredness from the two consecutive 120-mile round trips. Maybe it’s that My Darling and I are days from our anniversary. Whatever it is, I’m craving something creative—an outlet, a release.
At the largest cancer hub I’ve ever seen, we drifted between corridors, waited beside strangers, all of us here for the same unspoken reason. Tests. Hope. Fear. A scan, a whisper, a look. Maybe good news, maybe not. We sit side by side with painted smiles, while machines whirr through us like ghost-catchers. Our loved ones sit nearby, quietly clutching bags of snacks, prepared for an impromptu car picnic on the way home.
After the full-body MRI finished its work on me, we followed the smell of food to the hospital’s restaurant. A long queue—staff on breaks, researchers grabbing nourishment, nurses snatching moments of rest. I stood among them with a kind of humbled reverence. These people may soon help save me.
The balti curry was, unsurprisingly, lovely. And after nearly an hour of lying motionless, it felt like a small feast-like celebration.
Over the two person table we were sitting at My Darling asked if I was worried. Maybe my face gave it away. I hadn’t meant to look pained, but maybe the waiting room afterwards told its own story—worry is written into the eyes of everyone there.
I’m not afraid of the technicians. Not really. But I am wary of the gain and the loss wrapped into the letter that follows their trained observations. A report that quietly records the state of play inside me. Sometimes I wish medical letters came with a traffic light sticker:
Green — smile, breathe, relax.
Amber — cautious optimism, maybe more tests.
Red — brace yourself!
Today’s scan is just a baseline. The next one—two months from now—will tell us if the chemo is working. That’s the pudding. That’s the proof. That’s the prayer.
But I’m still a week away from the next infusion, and my meds need upgrading to manage these new Afib episodes. I’ve called cardiology. Their voicemail promises they’ll return my call. They haven’t. I’m tired of chasing help. Self-advocacy is fine—until you’re too exhausted to speak up.
On Monday I’ll email my cancer nurse and let her handle it. For now, I need to let it go. It’s got me down—but not broken.
The last five days of A&E and distant appointments have worn me to unraveling. That’s what I need to fix. But here we go again… up and down, round and round. A spiralling game of attrition I’ll never win.
The weekend is a bonus. I’ll stop bellyaching. Maybe we’ll go for a walk—daylight or dusk—with my beautiful bride.
⸻
Tonight, as I’m writing in the dark beside My Darling as she sleeps, I find myself unexpectedly pierced by the wedding photos we were sent earlier today. Our godson’s Tuscan wedding. A perfect scene—vineyards, blue skies, joy.
One photo got me. Keeps coming back like a splinter under the skin.
Just a table. That’s all. (See Photo)
No guests, no bride and groom. Just a long wooden table, set for a celebration. Plates and silverware gleaming in the sun, lined up in perfect anticipation. It stretches into the distance like a drawing in an O-Level art exam on perspective.
That table should’ve been ours to enjoy. We should’ve sat there, laughing with new friends, swapping stories, eating, drinking, living.
But we weren’t. And we won’t. That table is a monument to absence. It stands for the laughter we missed, the glasses we didn’t raise, the sun we didn’t feel on our skin.
That empty wedding table? It’s as empty as my heart.
Tonight, friends visited—just back from our Florentine holiday. The one we planned and booked. The one they took from us.
They told their stories, their mishaps, their wonder at Pisa and the city walls. The hotel wechose in Florence. The itinerary we imagined.
I wanted to scream: SHUT UP. SHUT UP. WILL YOU EVER SHUT UP?
Those should’ve been our stories. Our train delays. Our gelato. Our view of the Duomo at dusk.
Instead, I sat still. I listened. I smiled. I swallowed back the ache.
I didn’t expect to feel such fury. Or such loss. I didn’t expect to wonder if I should ask for our money back. But think it I did.
I’m ashamed to feel it. But it’s the truth.
And that’s what the empty table really is: truth. Beauty, too—but mostly truth. The truth of what’s gone, what’s out of reach, what we missed. What I’m missing still.
⸻
P.S.
I wanted today’s post to be celebratory. Lighter. Clearly, that didn’t work out.
But let me end it the way I meant to:
“How wonderful life is while you’re in the world.”
(You know who wrote that. I don’t have to say it.)
And I mean it, My Darling. I’m glad—so glad—every morning, to wake beside you. Making things bearable. To be part of your life.
