Sarah Smiley - Dinner with the Smileys: One Military Family, One Year of Heroes, and Lessons for a Lifetime

W hen the boys and I started inviting guests to dinner after Dustin left for deployment, we had a simple reason: We didnt want to be alone. Especially not at dinner. What began with selfish motivations, however, quickly evolved to become something else entirely.

As early as our seventeenth dinner, with Frank and Anita at the assisted living facility, we knew that our endeavor had become less about useven less about military families in generaland more about all the people in our community who eat alone at dinner. They are alone because they are widows and widowers, empty nesters, divorcees, single, or living away from home for the first time. They might even be alone with other people in the house. They are eating in the kitchen while their spouses eat in front of the television in the living room. They are eating with strangers at a nursing home. They are alone and ordering pizza in their apartments.

Indeed, there are many different ways to be lonely.

And so, toward the end of the year, Dinner with the Smileys became more about building a community that could help everyone be less alone at the dinner table. We realized our invitations didnt hold benefits solely for us; they offered something for our guests as well. As blessed as we were by people filling Dustins empty seat, it turned out, our guests felt just as blessed for having been invited.

These connections often extended beyond the dinner. A year later, many of our dinner guests were still very much a part of our lives. They had become like family, and it is difficult for us to remember a time when we didnt know them.

Ben Sprague and Malorie, who went to Boston with us to meet the Red Sox, are a great example. They got married a month later, and the boys and I were at the wedding. After the vows, as Ben and Malorie walked by us in the pews to exit the church, Ben reached out a hand to pat Fords shoulder. Ford beamed.

Ben continued to take Ford to Middle School Youth Group at church, and any time he saw the boys playing basketball at the park, he walked over to join them. A year later, Ben became the mayor of our city, and he and Malorie had a son of their own.

Frank and Anita also made a profound, lasting impact on our family. When the hardcover version of Dinner with the Smileys came out about five months after Dustin returned home, one of the first people to whom I wanted to give a book was Frank. We had been back to visit Frank and Anita with Dustin in January, and we planned to have dinner with them again to present Frank with the book. When I called to set up the meeting, however, I learned that Frank had died shortly before the books release. We considered visiting with Anita alone, but relatives told us her health had declined and she definitely would not remember us.

Instead, I met with Frank and Anitas daughter. She came to our house to share stories of Frank and to talk about our dinner. Lindell and Owen, then seven and eleven years old, passed through the living room on their way outside and were nearly oblivious to the stranger sitting on the couch. But when I said, Boys, this is Frank and Anitas daughter, they both stopped and turned around with softened faces.

How is Anita? Owen asked.

Didnt Frank go to Heaven? Lindell said.

To this day, whenever we pass by the assisted living facility, the boys mention Frank and Anita, and now they include the couples daughter, too.

Another dinner favorite was Maine Congressman Mike Michaud. Photographer Andrea Hands photographs eloquently captured the immediate and intense affection my youngest son felt for the congressman. The picture of Lindell riding on Mikes shoulders continues to be a reader favorite.

Mike still sends each of the boys a handwritten letter every Christmas, and he has told many acquaintances that his Dinner with the Smileys was among the best days of his life. We visited Mike in his DC office a year later, and Lindell couldnt wait to give him an update. I can read now, Lindell said. Remember how I couldnt read before?

For Lindell especially, who was only four years old when Dinner with the Smileys began, these friends in our communityfrom Melissa Huston, who still stops by to say hello, to Gibran at the bookstore, who always knows what the boys are readingare as much a part of our family as cousins, aunts, and uncles. There is virtually nowhere Lindell goes in town without running into a dinner guest. What an incredible gift to be greeted by a loving community of adults who dont just know his name but have been to his house, met his dog, and have shared a dinner table with his family.