Sending thanks, a personal story of gratitude

Posted Jun 5, 2009 by Erik Erlendsson

Updated Jun 5, 2009 at 07:41 PM

With the Stanley Cup series tied at two after each team held home ice, I thought I would share with everybody a story about a moment that happened to me and my family on Thursday night. It’s a rare thing in today’s society, what happened to us, and I’m not sure I will ever be able to personally thank the party responsible.

As many of you might know, or you might not if you are not a frequent visitor, but me and my wife have four children, and they are all boys. The age range is 12, 10, seven and four. It goes without saying (even if I’m writing it) that our days are often busy and usually loud as the four of them compete against each other for attention from their parents and from their brothers. Our boys are great kids, and while that is parental bragging on my part, it is also true. Our two oldest get straight A’s on their report cards and have never failed to make the principal’s honor roll. Our seven-year old, being the third child, has decided not to stay on par with his brothers but only because his handwriting needs serious work. But he worked hard at that this season and wound up making the honor roll his final nine weeks, something he was very happy to point out when his Nana and I attended the end-of-the-year awards presentation.

Our youngest may wind up beating them all, as he impressed his preschool teachers this year with his ability to know his colors and entire alphabet along with spelling his name.

OK, enough with the bragging and on to the reason I came here.

For an end of the year treat, we had a family night out at the Brandon Ale House on Thursday, which was the last day of school. It’s been a bit of a tradition that I take the boys out to lunch on the last day of school, but with my oldest in middle school now, making them wait until 2 p.m. is a bit late, so it turned into dinner. After some discussion, we decided on the Brandon Ale House.

As a former server for several years, I can tell you, most servers (and customers) cringe when they see a table of six come to their table when four of the six are children. And when the four are all boys, it can be a bit intimidating. Well, the table across from us was an older couple (at least they were older than us) and I’m sure they had some of the same thoughts about sitting across from a family of four boys - UGH.

Now, we often receive plenty of compliments when we do head out for dinner about what a nice family me and my wife have and how well behaved the kids are when we are in public. As parents, it certainly makes us proud to hear people go out of their way to offer such a compliment.

But this particular couple didn’t say a word. In fact, my wife happened to look over on a couple of occasions and she could see the other woman kind of looking over and speaking to her husband. My wife just kind of smiled to them and they would smile back. The couple then got up from the table after they finished their meal and headed out without saying anything to us at all. Certainly not uncommon by any means, so we didn’t think anything of the situation.

Well, the server for that couple came over to us shortly after the couple left. He wanted to make sure that we knew the couple expressed how impressed they were with how well behaved our kids were and how refreshing it was that they could enjoy a mean across from a table full of kids without feeling distracted or annoyed. As usual, the proud parents at the table were beaming with pride to hear the words from others

The server, however, was not done relaying his story. It seems that the couple was so impressed that they insisted on picking up our check and paying for our meal. I was on the phone with my brother at the time and had to put our conversation on hold as the waiter informed us that the tab was already taking care of, which also included the gratuity for our server, which was not the same for both tables.

Needless to say, we were blown away. As I sit here typing this up, I’m still blown away at the generosity of this couple. They didn’t want us knowing anything about what they were doing and wanted to make sure they got out of the restaurant quickly before their act became public.

We obviously have no way of expressing how appreciative we are of their gesture. They didn’t leave their name, and I wasn’t going to ask the waiter for their name off the credit card statement. The server indicated that the couple are somewhat regulars, and we asked him if he saw them again to please express our thanks for what they had done.

So, with the exception of relaying the message through the server, this is my way of saying thank you to that anonomous couple whose act of kindness and appreciation may go without a personal thank you.

So, to that couple, I say thank you from the bottom of our heart!

And if any readers out there have an inkling of who this wonderful man and woman may be, please direct them to this so they can read a word of gratitude for their act of kindness.