Grace Under Fire
A thank-you note to the people who made a hard Christmas Day a little easier
My friend Noémi Beres grew up in Hungary, lived in Ireland for a while, and now lives in Cyprus. A world citizen, in other words. She recently came to the United States for a few days. I asked her if she had visited a Waffle House. She had not.
I tried to explain the experience to her, even invoking the Waffle House Index, and found it impossible to communicate. As another friend, Lizzie Vox, once put it, “Waffle House is not visited; it is encountered.”
If you’re not familiar with Waffle House, there are videos that try to explain it. They help, a little. Mostly, you have to be there.
We found ourselves at a Waffle House on Christmas Day this year. What follows is a thank-you note I am writing to the staff of a particular restaurant that made a very difficult day for us a little easier.
Dear Manager:
I have no idea whether you were the manager on duty on Christmas Day. One of the things I’ve noticed over the years about Waffle House is that managers don’t sit behind desks. You may well have been one of the cooks or servers working that day.
In any case, I want to thank you and everyone at your Waffle House who made a difficult day for us a little easier.
For context, our severely disabled daughter, whom we cared for for 22 years, died suddenly on December 15, in what we believe was her 40th hospitalization. Honestly, we have lost count. Between the disruption surrounding her death and our grief, we neither felt like cooking on Christmas Day nor had we made any plans to do so.
We first went to another restaurant that had advertised being open on Christmas and offering a traditional meal. When we arrived, the place was in disarray. Patrons lined up out the door, but not because it was full. There was no host. No one was bussing tables. Servers tried to seat people in their own sections, while multiple tables sat empty. Potential patrons stood around, waited, then left. My wife waited in the lobby in her wheelchair with our son. I tried to stick it out, but when I heard a harried server say it would be “at least an hour,” we decided to leave.
So we went to the one place we knew would be open: Waffle House.
There is a Waffle House near our home that we frequent, but we chose not to go there. They know us well, but they had no way of knowing about our loss, and we didn’t want to field well-meaning questions concerning our daughter. So we went to yours, a little farther away, one we sometimes visit because at 3:00 p.m. on a typical weekday it’s not uncommon for us to be the only customers, along with a lone server and a cook.
Of course, on Christmas Day the situation was different.
Because of my wife’s wheelchair, there are only two tables in a typical Waffle House that work for us. Both were open when we arrived, and we were seated immediately despite the crowd. The restaurant was full, but no one was waiting to be seated.
With that many people, noise filled the place. Plates rattled, spatulas rang, a dozen servers flowed around each other and three cooks like well-coordinated ants. Kris greeted us immediately, with no wasted motion and without a sense of rush. She took our drink orders, then our food orders, smiling all the while, moving on to the next table. She mixed my wife’s “special” soda perfectly, never missing a beat.
She joined the line of servers waiting to shout orders in Waffle House shorthand to the cooks, who somehow knew exactly who was cooking what, without anyone looking the least bit frayed, high energy but focused. It seemed to me they even managed to cook different orders with each hand! When patrons left a table, someone pitched in to bus it immediately, smiling and waving toward the door to signal that a table had just opened.
I usually joke with servers. That day, I sat quietly, staring into my ice water until Kris brought the food. Three trips, everything perfectly assembled. I realized everyone behind that counter carried out their jobs like a well-oiled machine, serving a restaurant full of people that moved constantly, like an ant hill in motion.
I saw people eating alone at the counter. Older folks talking quietly in a booth. A young couple with a baby. All strangers. Some stared off into space, some engaged in earnest conversation. All eating at Waffle House on Christmas Day. Some probably just didn’t want to cook. Some may faced challenges as great as ours, or greater.
When grief is fresh, it wells up at unexpected times. At least twice during the meal, I had to stop and let the tears come. Kris didn’t intrude or ask questions. She simply made sure our drinks stayed full and checked gently to see if we needed anything.
When we finished, she made sure we had to-go cups for unfinished drinks. While I stepped away to the restroom, my wife took care of the bill. I encountered no wait for the restroom, despite how busy the place was, and it was clean, which meant someone had been tending to it throughout the day.
Chaotic? I suppose you could say that. Chaos? No. Controlled like a taut violin string.
I have no idea how many people you and your team fed that day who were having a difficult Christmas. I’m sure some of the workers themselves were dealing with losses, children needing care, parents and grandparents they would see later, or perhaps not at all.
You took care of us.
That kind of human value is easy to overlook. I want you and everyone there to know that it mattered. Thank you.
Places like this rarely ask for much. They just show up. If one has showed up for you when life got heavy, it might be worth letting them know you noticed.
Peace.
I’m Donn King. I write about living and speaking from your values, with curiosity, honesty, and a little wry humor. This Substack is where I show up regularly to think out loud, tell the truth as I see it, and stay in conversation with readers who care about meaning, clarity, and being human.
Sometimes just a bit of kindness makes all the difference: such a beautiful article and tribute to your daughter.
Bravo! I am glad they were there and ready for the day.