There’s nothing worse than seeing someone eat alone. It’s even worse around the holidays. When the staff at a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Myrtle Beach saw a woman eating by herself on Mother’s Day, they decided to do something about it.
Barbara Foy had come into the restaurant for lunch, and her server noticed that she was alone.
Foy is a local who lives in Murrells Inlet, just a few miles south of Myrtle Beach. She owns a toy store in Pawleys Island, and she spends her days playing with children and helping them find the perfect toys. Things haven’t always been so good for Foy, though. She has had plenty of hardships.
In 2004, Foy awoke from a coma. Things started to go downhill from there. She lost her partner and had complications caused by her coma. Foy was celebrating Mother’s Day alone because her only son lives in North Carolina, and she hadn’t even spoken to him in several months.
She was feeling down that day, but she still wanted to enjoy lunch.
The staff at the restaurant was about to make it a memorable lunch and Mother’s Day. They couldn’t stand to see her alone.
A server at the restaurant said:
“We were not OK with a mother feeling unloved on Mother’s Day. Growing up, I was told to treat others the way you wanna be treated. Me personally, if that was anybody’s mom I would have done the same thing.”
While Foy ate her lunch, her server, Mariah Brown, and two other servers, Christianna Smith and Kabria Hasty, prepared a Mother’s Day gift basket just for her.
They went to a nearby store and purchased some small items that they thought would help cheer her up. They also talked their manager into allowing them to treat her to her meal.
Foy said:
“I had all this on me and these girls didn’t know anything about me, just that I was sitting by myself. For their kindness — what they did for me to take so much off of me, to lift me up. I just can’t believe what they did. People don’t do that.”
The servers insist that they didn’t do anything out of the ordinary and were simply doing what they felt was right.
They wanted Foy to know that just she because she was eating alone, this didn’t mean she couldn’t feel special.
Foy added:
“This is a life-changing experience for me. Those girls are so special, the managers, all of them — couldn’t have shown me so much kindness. They told me I was part of their family.”
Foy was so excited about everything that happened that she couldn’t wait to call her son and tell him all about it.
She was able to get ahold of him a little after midnight that night and they talked for a while. He was blown away by her story.
He couldn’t believe that some complete strangers had gone out of their way to help his mother feel good during such a rough time. They had no idea what her situation was, but they couldn’t stand to see her alone.
Foy thinks it may have opened his eyes a little and helped him realize that he should have at least called her on Mother’s Day. It’s just an honest mistake, though, and Foy has forgiven him.
She added:
“He does love me. I bet he won’t forget Mother’s Day again or forget to call his poor little mama.”
Hopefully, Foy’s son remembers to call and spend more time with his mom after this.
Anytime Foy feels alone or down, though, she can always head back to her local Ruby Tuesday, where she knows there are always some kind faces that will be happy to see her. She has some new friends to celebrate with now. The servers who made this possible sure are thoughtful. Hopefully, they all had great Mother’s Days, as well.
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