Conversation On A Train.
Hi Peeps,
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All the best to you upon this fine, sunny morning.
I think that it could best be described as cold….yet bracing!
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Big H is off to the doctors this morning, because I made him an appointment after talking with my brother at the weekend.
He is going to ask to be referred to an expert on tropical diseases so that he can, once and for all, find out if he still has parasites in his skin, or whether that unfortunate experience was just a once in a lifetime thing and could not continue to be ongoing for ten years.
If nothing else, it will relieve his mind, one way or the other.
It is always best to know!
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I think I told you that this Christmas will be the first one we have spent without at least one of our boys at home, for almost forty years.
This is because they now have to visit their in-laws every other year…and it is only fair to do so…so this Xmas will be very different.
A bit like when we first got married, but probably with a lot less sex….and a lot more complaining.
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When Big H was abroad for three years on his own, my sons frequently used to invite me down to stay with them in their London Flat.
I was great going there on the train, but I used to feel quite grumpy on the way home to my own house.
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I remember one particular journey, when I was sitting in the window seat, and I became aware that the rather elegant older woman next to me kept looking at me.
I knew that if I looked at her she would talk to me and I did not feel like it, obviously because I was in a grumpy mood, so I just bloodymindedly stared out of the window for a long, long time.
The journey itself takes about three and a half hours from station to station.
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Eventually, my better nature reasserted itself, and I stopped glaring out of the window and just sat back in my seat.
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‘Hello’, said the elegant older lady, ‘How far are you going?’
Then a conversation ensued, as it always does.
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It was not long before she asked me if she could tell me something that she had never told anyone else, not even her own grown up children.
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She had been married for most of her life to the most wonderful man, and they had always remained madly in love, and devoted to each other.
She said that he had been as handsome as a film star, but he had somehow been extremely unphotogenic, and never took a good photograph.
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As luck would have it, her beloved husband eventually developed cancer and became extremely ill and bedridden.
She had always looked after him by herself, as she wanted to have him to herself as much as possible, for as long as she possibly could.
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One day, towards the end, he asked her to go and get their camera and take a photograph of him.
Although surprised, because of his usual dislike of his awful photographs, she did as he wanted and then put the camera up on top of the wardrobe and forgot about it, immersed in the slog of being the only carer.
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Eventually he died, and she bravely kept a stiff upper lip in order to get through the funeral and the kind conversations with family and friends, followed by dealing with the the will and adapting to the general rearrangement of her life.
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In time she came across the camera again and took the roll of film to be developed, though she could not remember all the stuff that was on it.
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Flipping through the developed photographs she was amazed to find the picture that her husband had asked her to take while he was dying.
Somehow it had turned out to be the only picture ever to have shown him as the truly unusually handsome man that he had been in real life.
She was both stunned and thrilled by it, and took it to be framed.
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The resulting picture was lovingly placed on the table beside her bed, in order for her to see it each day, both as she went to bed at night, and as she awoke, first thing in the morning.
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At this point in the story she paused.
She said that she had known that she could tell me anything, and that as I knew nothing at all about her, she could find out my opinion and feel quite comfortable with it.
There would be no danger of anyone who knew her finding out, or possibly spoiling, her secret.
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It seemed that her family were a down-to-earth, and prosaic lot, and she was frightened of accusations of being mentally ill and ‘past it’ etc., with the subsequent loss of respect and autonomy.
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She then said that she would like my honest opinion about the following part of her story.
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That night, when she went to bed she had picked up her husband’s picture and kissed it, before returning it carefully to it’s exact place at her bedside.
She said ‘Goodnight’,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and told him she loved him.
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He smiled at her.
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His face in the photograph actually moved and smiled straight at her.
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This had continued to happen each night, all through the long years since then, bringing her joy and comfort, and a real hope for seeing him again in the future.
The glow on her face was amazing, she looked so young for just a moment.
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I told her that this was not my first time of hearing something like this, and that she should accept it for the miracle of love that it surely was.
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‘Then you don’t think that I am mad?’
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Absolutely not. I think that you are just incredibly lucky!’
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That was really the end of the conversation and we both sat companionably together and read our books.
We eventually got off the train and she was met by the people she had come up to visit.
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I went home feeling privileged to have been entrusted with such a love story.
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What do you think of that?
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Have a fine Thursday out there.
LOL
J.x.
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