An Old Friend On the Train

While waiting for the train to Bern this morning, another train pulled up in front of me. Through a window slightly to my left, a baby sat on her father’s lap. The glass was two, maybe three meters away.

The baby looked at me, our eyes locked. Her tiny finger rose and pointed at me. Her face breaking into a smile.

I smiled back, and waved gently. Yet in those few minutes while the train idled on the track, her gaze held. Steady. Long enough to unsettle me, to wake something buried.

It felt like recognition. Too much awareness for a baby. Too intense focus. And suddenly I knew—I was not looking at a child. I was looking through her.

The chill came then. Not fear, but joy. Joyful chill that can break us open. Like meeting someone we had lost forever—again.

The tears followed. Quiet, unstoppable. Relief, almost.

Then the train pulled away. Gone again. I sat on the bench at platform 3, wiping tears with the back of my hand.

What a strange mercy, I thought. To be seen. To be remembered. If only for a brief moment.

Eyes are the windows to the soul. They say.