Last week I found myself watching the Connecticut coast roll by from the window of an Amtrak train on my way to visit my oldest brother in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C.
When I was nine, we moved from a little town nestled on the banks of the Susquehanna in central Pennsylvania to New Jersey. (Watch it! I’m very proud of my New Jersey roots.) In high school I often took the Northeast Regional train from Newark’s Penn Station to D.C.’s Union Station to visit said brother. I love trains.
This trip brought back fond memories from high school and later trips to Philly’s 30th Street station during college over 45 years ago.
Seven years ago, I took a night train out of Salt Lake City over the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, and then a northbound train up the Oregon Coast to Seattle. After riding all night I spent each day soaking up the natural beauty through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the observation car.
In my brother’s house I stumbled into another memory. Nine years ago, from March until May, I lived in their guestroom and spent all my days at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. (One of my sons created an acronym: WRENMIMIC) Our Army medic son, David, had AML (leukemia) and flew from Korea, where he was stationed, to Bethesda. After two months at WRENMIMIC he was transferred to MGH and lived with us during his treatments. Fifteen months later he died peacefully in our home.
Jim and I drove down to meet David at Dulles Airport on March 26, 2014. Spring had definitely begun and the daffodils and greening lawns were a bright spot in a dark time. Every day those green patches of grass expanded and shrubs blossomed.
One afternoon when David didn't need me, I took the Metro subway to the National Mall. I walked to the Washington Monument, then to the Jefferson Memorial, and around the Tidal Basin. A cherry blossom canopy floated above me. I was walking among pink clouds and it was glorious.
When our kids were young, we spent many an April vacation driving to Bethesda. The contrast, especially from Manchester, New Hampshire, where we lived for seven years, was striking. In April New Hampshire had barely emerged from winter. All the tree branches and limbs were still bare. In Connecticut the yellow of forsythias dotted the landscape.
Flowering shrubs and trees appeared in New Jersey. Bethesda was in full bloom.
A week later we backtracked, and Spring reversed herself until we were back in the land of bare limbs. But Spring was coming: we’d seen it approaching from the South.
My trip back to Boston last Saturday started out slowly, literally. Through my own fault (I forgottten my brand-new cherry-blossom umbrella behind and couldn’t bear to leave it behind) I arrived at the Amtrak gate one minute past closing. Happily a Northeast Regional was due to leave only 25 minutes later. Even though I had missed my train through my own fault, Amtrak graciously exchanged my ticket.
I’m back to bare limbs from cherry blossoms floating above the lawns. But Spring is coming. I’ve seen her approach.
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