Requiem for a train
Grabbing breakfast this morning at the local coffee shop, I watched a mom and her two kids check out the bagel selection. Things were going swimmingly for the trio until the little girl, probably around seven or eight, came over to where I was at the coffee stand and started peering into the blackness of a gap between the pastry display coolers and the coffee bar counter. Her mom then came over to see what was going on and the little girl said "But Mommy, I see a small object right back there," pointing into the inky abyss, gettng that seriously hopeful look that only small kids can. "Sorry, darling," Mom said in a lovely English accent, "but I don't see it anywhere."I'd noticed the girl's shoes, an adorable pair of sparkly rainbow "jelly" sandals, that were the kind of footwear my eight- and 10-year-old nieces would go apers over themselves and I smiled at the mom and girl. The mom looked at me, kind of sheepishly, smiled and said, "We lost something in there a couple of years ago." The little girl, not wanting to surrender the dream of rescuing her missing toy, said in a sad, wistful way, "It was Henry the Train," never taking her eyes off the darkness of Henry's final resting place.
In a second or so, the girl's brother had decided on his breakfast and Mom had, in her gentle, soothing English Mom way, asked her daughter if she'd like a muffin top or a bagel. Skipping over to Mom in her sparkly rainbow sandals, the little girl mulled her options.
posted by rekkidbraka @ 2:02 PM
4 Comments:
I once lost a book between the booth seats at a Chinese food restaurant and never got it back.
This reminded me of that
I'd been living in this apartment for four years and it was time to move. All the furniture was gone and I was in the final cleanup stage. It was a funky old place that had an ironing board built in to the wall and, as I was sweeping, I say that there was a piece of paper that had been stuck between a couple of the boards that was part of the cabinet. I pulled it out and it was a five dollar bill from 1953. Someone had written "ENJOY" across it in pencil.
I stumbled upon your blog. Very refreshing!
Thanks, y'all. I wish you could have heard the way this girl said "It was Henry the Train." Not all fake cutesysad or trying to get attention for herself, but honestly like her little heart was about to break because Henry was gone and not coming back. And this was the first time she'd realized it. Henry was real to her, if not to Mom or to me.
I rarely get all sentimental about things, but it was one of those little life moments that would otherwise just pass by, unremembered, because it would on any other day seem unremarkable. Ten years ago I probably wouldn't have noticed but now that I have nieces around this girl's age, I understand how much things that seem petty and small to adults really mean to kids.
And, though we've all been taught "Don't talk to strangers" and for good reason, I dig the way kids can generally pick out a Good Egg Adult (like me; I think kids rock) and will talk to you like they've known you all their life. She made sure I knew it was Henry the Train and that I should be really sad, too, that Henry wasn't going to have breakfast with their family that morning. What a sweetie. SHE'LL be a great mom someday.
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