Train Station

Based on the painting “Metropolitan Station" by Brent Heighton

I was nine the last time I saw my parents. Standing with the aunt and uncle I barely knew, I watched them walk away. Dad was wearing his long trench coat, hat pulled low over his ears, walking in that slouched, somewhat humped shoulder manner he had. Mom was wearing her good dress and her Sunday coat; the red one that smelled like rose perfume. I could see the white feather that stuck up from her church hat, slowly starting to droop due to the rain. Neither had thought to bring an umbrella. They never touched. Never held hands or put an arm of comfort around the other, just walked away and never looked back.

Even though the train station was crowded, families loading up what possessions they could with their children in order to find some place that would be safe, or as safe as could be found in those troubled days, and all the confusing noise that made, I swear that I could still hear my mom cry. Soft gentle sobs that somehow carried back to me over the noisy crowds and steam hissing annoyance of the train impatiently waiting to leave.

I was being sent to stay at the farm, my dad and uncles childhood home, and as far away as one could get from the city. The bombings were getting worse, the Germans were striking harder and more often. Entire neighborhoods were ruins now, places I played football with friends after school, street corner shops were I bought penny sweets, little nooks and crannies we weren’t supposed to hang around in but where we would still play as Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty or Spring-Heeled Jack.

All were gone.

I didn’t understand then why people hated us so much that they dropped bombs on us, fact of the matter I still don’t, and I didn’t understand why my parents would send me away and come with. But as I got older I realized that my parents, and all the parents that day and the many that followed, were doing the one thing…the only thing they could: They were sacrificing FOR us, so we could be safe. So we could be warm and dry in the winter and not have to worry about not having enough to eat, as I learned years later that so many did go hungry during that time, that they did freeze to death in their beds and that a simple cold was enough to claim even a healthy person.

I never found out the exact day my parents died, they weren’t found for weeks after a bomb had caused the house I grew up in to fall in on them, but thinking back I somehow KNEW that they were gone, long before the letter that my aunt and uncle received explaining what happened.

I was sleeping and it was raining outside, just like it had been for what seemed like forever since moving to the farm, and in the dream I was back at the train station, all the sights and sounds identical to that day and my parents were walking away, just like before only this time they turned back to wave at me. My mom was smiling, tears or rain drops were sliding slowly down her cheeks, my dad had that crooked smile that showed his one dimple on his face and they just waved at me. Another couple was walking toward them, they had a large red umbrella keeping the rain off themselves, even in my dream my parents still forgot to bring theirs, and as the other couple passed in front of them they turned and walked away, except this time, before they disappeared from sight, they grabbed each others hand and were gone.