Waitress moved to tears after receiving thank you note from widow eating alone

You never know what someone's going through and it's all the more reason to be kind whenever you can. When waitress Megan King saw an elderly woman eat by herself at the restaurant she was working at, she paused to spend a moment with her. King chatted with the woman for a while and then went about her routine like any other day. But for the elderly woman, it meant so much more. She left a note thanking the waitress for spending time with her. “Thank you very much for your kind service. This was my first time eating out alone since my husband passed. I was hoping I could get through it,” read the note. Megan King choked up with emotion on seeing the scribbled note.

“She came in about halfway through my 17-hour shift, and it was on Sunday, which is always pretty busy,” King told Newsweek. “About halfway through her meal, it started to slow down so we chatted for a few minutes. Small talk, nothing too deep. She told me she was almost 70… and she just wanted to stop by an old favorite for a bite.” The waitress said she saw the woman quietly sitting, almost reflecting after having the meal. Her instincts told her to go talk more to the elderly woman but wondered if she didn't like the food. She now regrets not spending more time with the woman, who just needed someone to talk to. She said she wished she had taken up the invitation. “I think that’s what she wanted, looking back… I guess she did, in a way. [She needed] an ear,” said King.

When King read the note, she fought back tears and had to gather herself in the ladies' room. Later, she posted the note on her Twitter account, simply captioning it: Pain. She also posted an image of tears rolling down her eyes as she smiled at the camera. "This is my real smile because I am very happy and that note did not break my heart at all," she wrote. “That’s super sad, but also sweet at the same time. I just wanna give whoever wrote this note a hug,” wrote one person.

The elderly woman had also left behind a $3 tip on her $11 check brought King to tears. Some responded to the post saying the elderly woman should have tipped more, but King, who was kind to the elderly woman, stepped up to support her, again. “A lot of our customers are older and living on fixed incomes, so they tip what they can. They are always welcome, no matter how much or little they tip,” said King.

Many sent kind messages to the waitress. "I'm trying to go through my DMs and like 1/5 of them are like 'I looked at your profile and I can tell you are going through a hard time' or 'it will get better' like how am I supposed to tell them that this is me at my best," wrote King, before adding, "BuT if you sent me a message like this and I haven’t responded, I appreciate the sentiment a lot, actually. Thank you." Some waitresses shared similar moving stories in the comments section.