Friday Night Dinner

Originally published Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 10:42pm

Today it was a commercial for Outback Steakhouse. I saw the commercial, reflected a moment, my memory was jogged, and the tears began to trickle. My eyes sting. They dry up. The moment passes. My head hurts.

I never know what it will be that makes me think of my dad and cry. Sometimes I think of him, and I don't cry. Sometimes I just cry.

The Outback Steakhouse was where we were heading for dinner a few Fridays ago. It seems like a lifetime. Yet, it was one month ago, Friday, February 12, 2010. The snow storms, the biggest to hit the DC area in seven years had just finished and he had been discharged from the hospital in the midst of them. Snowbanks two feet high covered much of the region and that Friday was the first day back to work for most people after four days off.

Traffic was horrible. My twenty minute commute picking up my son at school to travel to my father's house took three times as long. Dad was patient. Then, it took a major effort to help him out of the house and make it to the car which I could not park in front of his house. I had to park four houses down in the middle of the road (I use the term park rather loosely; stop the car is more accurate).

Our fifteen minute ride to the restaurant took over an hour. Traffic lights were out, travel lanes were not plowed. Congestion abounded. Amazingly Quinton was sane in the backseat enjoying his Ipod and Dad and I just talked. We talked the whole time. It was probably the longest uninterrupted, adult conversation he and I had had in years.

But we never made it to the Outback Steakhouse. He would have ordered the Prime rib, Quinton would have had the mac and cheese, and I would have had the grilled shrimp. I know this. That is what we always ordered. We always tried to get there early on the Fridays we went, like by 6:30 or so to beat the night time, date time crowd.

Up until that night, Friday night dinner had been our family tradition for years, four to be exact. We started in January 2006. I had started training to run a marathon and needed to get up early on Saturdays so Dad started staying over on Friday nights to watch Quinton. We started doing Friday dinner and then we would come home to my house together instead of him going home to his house. I would be up and out at 6am, or 5am when summer came, and Dad would be there when Q woke up. They would hang out cook breakfast or go out to eat. I would make it home by 10 or 11am. We did that routine for ten months until the October date for the Marine Corps Marathon. I ran it. Finished in just over five hours. It was one of the most life changing experiences I will ever have. I grew so much in my abilities to persevere and to ask for help. I fell down… a lot. And I got back up. I relied on a community of people to help me achieve my personal goal. I accomplished success for others as well. I raised money for AIDS while I trained. And I taught myself, my dad, and my son what the power of the words “I can do it” meant coming out of my mouth.

When the race was won, we kept up with the Friday dinners. But Dad no longer slept over. He went home afterwards. I don’t blame him. I did not have a guest room. All those months, he slept on the sofa. Never complained, never commented, never showed any signs of anything other than duty. He taught me in that way. Put your head down and do the thing you committed to do. No costs assigned to the requestor. Just do the thing.

That last Friday dinner did not happen at the Outback because they had lost power and had no electricity. The Home Depot and the Giant grocery store across the way, the traffic lights, and the entire Prince Georges Plaza mall area on the south side of East West Highway was out. We went to the Olive Garden across the parking lot instead.

Everything worked out really weel. We found parking, got a table quickly, Dad ate pretty well. It was there, for the first time in our 200 plus Friday night dinners, that I learned for the first time that Friday night dinners out with his folks is what he did when he was younger. I had never known. I do not even remember how it came up. I asked some question about when he was younger, the age Quinton is now. He described the restaurant and the building. The name escapes me now. He said that his family, his mother, father, sister, and himself, went out most Fridays for years. Interesting.

I loved my dad. I enjoyed his company. And long ago he taught me the ability to enjoy being in someone’s company without having to fill up the space with words or television or other entertainment. He allowed me to experience unconditional friendship and companionship. I learned to respect him and his space and to let him be. I learned to accept him as he was and let go of any wishes for him to be different…. For our time to be different.

We did not laugh and talk and fill up Friday nights with good cheer and happiness. We just went to dinner on Friday nights. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it was quite, sometimes it was long, sometimes it was not. We went all over town... College Park, downtown, Chinatown, Silver Spring, Hyattsville, Baltimore, Capitol Hill, Union Station, Wisconsin Ave., and, more. When the recession hit heavy, we started eating in at home, cooking or ordering Chinese food.

I have not figured out what to do about dinner on Fridays yet. In time I know I will. For now, I can look at the Outback Steakhouse commercials, but the Olive Garden ones tear me to pieces.