Our journey

Written on June 28 2018:

We are on board the 10.23am train. Coraline and I made it aboard. Today we have a five or so hour train journey to visit my Dad, with various changes on the way. I hope to swim in a river when we get there.

This journey feels, to me, like such an accomplishment because it’s the first time she and I have done such a big journey together on public transport. We are normally with Kevin in the car. Those hands we’ve come to know have taken the pram up escalators whilst I had Coraline in the sling, and up even more escalators and have held lifts, and lifted the pram on and off trains. We saw an amazing Dad with his three children and the empowering words he used with them. One woman whispered to me, “she’s perfect” as we got off the train. She kind of is as travel companions go. She smiles a lot. As you can see she’s a relaxed one.

We’ve heard people’s life stories on the escalators which they’ve told us whilst holding our pram, about shared custody and later about life in France and I’ve looked back and asked more with interest and I’ve wanted to tell them: “we were late this morning and ran here”, “we don’t do this much; she wasn’t allowed to get ill for nine months because of her heart so this is new for us”, “I needed you to help because the escalator scares me”, “I’m getting married in three weeks and my head is spinning with all we have to do still so thank you”. But we only had minutes each time a hand helped. I think my eyes told them anyway. I guess we all have a story going on and we all have a kindness.