Life Is What Happens When You Take the Empty Chair

Written for Great Minds Think –
“Life is What Happens When…..”
Sarah is hosting solo this week
as Rohini is taking a break, and
has given us an interesting challenge
to work with: Make our poem, story, or
illustration one which captures the idea
of life taking an unexpected turn.

Labor Day weekend, ’78,
a hundred and three on the Strip,
but we didn’t come for the desert sun.
Sinatra was the reason for the trip.

I tried on four dresses and settled on blue,
sapphire velvet sprinkled with light,
and the choker Bill gave me for year number five,
to make a good impression that night.

We arrived on time but the long table was full
except for three chairs close to the stage,
and one at the end, clearly marked RESERVED,
that nobody else dared to engage.

Life is what happens when you take the seat
the cautious leave empty and cold.
No usher came over to tell us to move,
so we stayed, a little too bold.

Then the chatter dropped to a whispering hush
as a blonde in white brocade and mink
was led to the chair at my right-hand side,
all diamonds and sapphires. I couldn’t blink.

She admired my choker and asked me my name.
“Nancy,” I said, and she smiled:
“That’s Frank’s daughter’s name”, she told me,
“and sapphires drove the man wild.”

She offered one be-jeweled hand and said
she was Barbara, Frank’s wife.
I sat there amazed at this turn of events,
a Bronx girl on the night of her life.

At nine on the dot the curtain swept back:
a stool by the piano, and a smoke,
then the band struck up “Fly Me to the Moon,”
and the whole room roared as it woke.

Frank joked that he never took requests
unless his wife asked for one,
And that’s when Barbara leaned close
to tell me “You’re gonna love this one.”

“Nancy (With the Laughing Face).”
I squeezed Bill’s arm through the song.
It felt like Frank sang it to me, and he did….
that’s what I told myself all night along.

After the show, Barbara said “Come with me.”
Then two burly men cleared the way
to a dressing room where Frank sat, tie loose,
drink in hand, like on ballgame day.

He lifted my hand to his lips and said,
“How ya doin’, doll?” A word I abhor
from any man then, and any man since,
but in those blue eyes I saw “I adore.”

All I heard was “Your Majesty,”
and I’ve carried it all these years through.
Life is what happens when you dare take a chance.
I walked in a guest. I left a queen dressed in blue.

NAR©2026

This is “Nancy With the Laughing Face” by Frank Sinatra

Life is what happens when…

^{Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me unless otherwise indicated, and may not be used without permission. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.}