Seeing Them Off

Sometimes you can't avoid Tampa, or The Dark City.  When your grandkids are hopping on a bus that in three days will send them to the land of Canucks and Eskimos, you make every effort to bid them farewell.  It could be a long time till we see them again.

There are rules regarding bus stations:  they are always in a less than reputable place in town, they are usually dark, old, lonely and cold places.  The cold refers not only to the temperature but the feeling of the place itself on your soul.  It is a place of departure, of anxiety, of nervousness, of feelings of dread, or hope, or joy, depending on where you are going and why.  But generally joy seems to be one of the rare feelings in bus stations.  

Today I see my boy, my baby I spent so much time with in G-Burg, leave for Canada.  Of course, he left me long ago, really.  He moved away once before, started growing up and began to forget what fun we had.  Now that was joy!  Perhaps the happiest time in my life was when Michael and I moved as one around G-Burg back when he was 3 and 4 years old.  He's 10 now, so he has forgotten.  But I haven't.  Someday I'll have to tell you of my bus trip to Petersburg Virginia to pick up Michael and bring him back to G-Burg when he was still in diapers.  Now that was a trip.

Here he is listening to his mother gives instructions.  I've seen that slack-jawed, glazed, I'm-really-not-listening-mom look dozens of times and never tire of seeing it.  

Let's face it.  If you had the money you wouldn't take a bus.  There I said it.  You'd fly.  Or if you had your own wheels you'd drive.  But lots of people have neither so the bus becomes a means to an end.  Usually a bottom-feeding means to an end.

One final game before you get on that bus and make three transfers and in three days you move from Mid-Florida to southern Canada.  Farewell kids.  I hope you love it in Canada again.  

I hate bus stations. Trains stations can be sad, too.  I had a sad one year's ago when I had to hop on a train to head back for another semester of school in Denver.  I didn't want o go and my Dad sensed it.  I think if he'd said to "bag it" and let's go home I would have.  But we commit to things and we never surrender.  Tonight's trip was another sad one.