Several years ago, an amazing thing happened to me. My husband and I were at one of our favorite causal restaurants for a mid-week Valentine’s Day celebration dinner. This was before we had kids so we thought nothing of the hour wait for a table and we slid ourselves up to the bar to enjoy a glass of wine on the romantic evening.
We struck up a conversation with an older couple who was celebrating a birthday and two gentlemen who were visiting from out of town. We sampled different wines with the couple and chatted about how special it was that one of them was celebrating a birthday that night. We gave the gentlemen local tips on the fun things to do and see. The restaurant had a great crowd that night and was filled with energy. The small and friendly restaurant was buzzing with people who were laughing, eating and enjoying their night out.
Our name was called when our table was ready and we said goodbye to our new friends and wished them each a pleasant evening. It was the perfect night. We sat at a tall table and dined from a never disappointing menu. We sipped our wine and held hands as we remembered memories of past Valentine’s Days we spent together.
When our dinner was over, my husband left to go to the restroom as our server brought us containers with our leftovers. He set down the white foam boxes and a bottle of wine on our table. “Have a good night!" he told me. Once my husband arrived back at the table, we realized that neither of us had paid the bill. My husband motioned to our server and he came back to our table.
My husband told him, “We need our check.” To which he replied, “You are all set. It has been taken care of.” “By whom?” we asked. “They asked me not to say but Happy Valentine’s Day.”
We were shocked. Was it possible that total strangers had treated us to dinner? I ran my fingertips down the smooth bottle of wine that was given to us to take home and noted that it was the kind that we had been drinking throughout dinner. The same kind that we sampled with the older couple at the bar enjoying a birthday celebration.
I will never know for sure who the kind people were that decided to treat a young, happy couple to a Valentine’s Day dinner but it still warms my heart when I think of it. My husband and I decided that night that one day we would pass along the same act of kindness to an unsuspecting happy couple. It was a Valentine’s Day that we will always remember.