The Grand Adventure

Dear friend,

Since landing, I have been pinballing up and down the country — friends, a wedding, a record-breaking heatwave. And then, on a train platform somewhere between north and south, I met her.

I was hoisting my two heavy suitcases down yet another set of platform stairs after exiting a delayed train. No announcements to tell a crowd of confused passengers how they were to move on in their journey. As I settled onto the platform and into my thoughts about acceptance, I noticed her.

Next to me, an elderly lady, tired from the heat, sighed.

"I like your shirt," I said. An embroidered parrot sat in a tree, staring out majestically against the crisp whiteness of her cotton shirt.

"Oh, thank you," she beamed, looking down and admiring it herself.

She bent down to her small case and muttered quietly, "I haven't had a drink."

"You haven't had a drink? Of water, do you mean?"

"Yes. Not since 7:30 this morning," she said, looking exhausted. It was already 2 pm and getting hotter and hotter.

"Here," I said, passing her my bottle of fresh Salford tap water. She gratefully chugged it back.

A nearby train worker, noticing our exchange, held out a bottle of water. "'ere, love, you can have this — I haven't opened it. We get given them workin'ere."

"See!" I said, beaming. "The universe doth provide."

She smiled weakly, not totally convinced by my enthusiasm. She began to list her troubles. Her husband hadn't packed her elbow support. She was headed to her son in faraway Devon — he was seriously ill. And she'd left her husband behind, with cancer, to go for his treatment tomorrow without her. And now the train was delayed.

Her eyes were watery with tiredness. Her face told the whole story.

We boarded the crowded train, me straining against the weight of my cases, a station worker helping her with hers. We huddled in the entrance, unable to move further into the packed carriage. I spotted the disabled seat folded up behind her and showed her — she sat down gratefully.

As the train pulled out of the station, I put a hand on her shoulder. I felt her warm, soft flesh beneath the cool of her crisp cotton shirt. She looked up at me.

"It's just part of the grand adventure," I said.

She smiled — tired, but real. Her parrot ignored us both, choosing to stare into the midriffs of the local northerners who rocked around us.

I don't know if I made her journey easier, but the connection sure helped me.

I love you.
I love you.
I love you.

Lizzie