Neither the grey sky nor the steady rain could dampen Rene’s thoughts any more than they already were. The train would be leaving soon. Coming home wasn’t what she expected. Nothing remained of what once had been. She knew things would have changed but she wasn’t ready for what she found. Dementia comes on slowly; but for Rene and her mom, it had been a lifetime.
I wish I could tell you that I had known Rene and her family for a long time, but I cannot. We met on the long train ride home after a trip. We shared a compartment, just the two of us. Rene needed to talk. I was willing to listen. By the end of the journey, I knew all about her childhood, her brothers and sisters, her drunken father, and her dementia laden mom.
We shared space for a time…and time forever. Rene and I never kept in touch, perhaps she was embarrassed for exposing so much of herself to a stranger; or maybe I was needed only for that moment in her life. I’ll never know nor does it matter. I will always recall the telling and the feelings it evoked within me, especially now, on my journey home.
Living In the Corner of a Vortex 
Rene seems to have changed your train rides for ever. You will carry a part of her pain all your life. Perhaps that is why she shared it all with you.
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She certainly has. Although I’ve not ridden a passenger train in real life yet.
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I see. It used to be a mesmerizing experience in my childhood, the train whistling and then chugging out of the station, past the people who had come to see off the passengers or those waiting for other trains, buildings and trees sliding past but those in the background moving with you, turning ever so lightly on some axis, farms, farmers, haystacks, ponds, cows…
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It sounds wonderful. I hope you get to ride again…I wonder how much will have changed when you do.
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It’s mostly traumatic now. Felons, Morlocks, gloom, filth and grime… We are the largest mobocracy in the world. It need not be bad elsewhere.
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Take that train ride and get the heck out of Dodge…move back to the farm!
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My father tried that and failed. I don’t know. I don’t know. Perhaps that all belongs to the irretrievable past.
https://uspandey.com/2016/08/18/the-same-night/
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Perhaps so…beautiful piece you wrote – poetic and filled with emotion.
Memories may be best left as they are until they aren’t any more. That is the sadness of Dementia for those watching from the sidelines. For those with Dementia they live in the long ago once again and for them it is the same until it isn’t.
My mom has it. We talk deeper now than we ever have. She no longer hides her thoughts about a moment in time. It certainly makes old moments new again.
Thanks for passing on this lovely read.
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