The Empty Chair at Margaret's Table

Every Thanksgiving for forty-one years, Margaret Ellison set a place for her husband, Carl, at the head of their dining table in Boone, North Carolina. After he died of pancreatic cancer in 1982, the family dreaded that first holiday without him. Margaret's daughter begged her to rearrange the seating. Margaret refused. "That chair isn't empty," she said. "It's a reminder that death didn't get the last word."…