It was already late in the afternoon when I checked into the hotel, a once prominent and near elegant downtown address that had become tired and shopworn.
I entered my third floor room, then walked to the window and pulled aside the curtains. Across the street was the train station that would soon be torn down to make way for new and modern. Already, bulldozers had begun to take large chunks from a recently vacated part of the building.
After unpacking, I returned to the lobby, ate a “burger and Coke” supper at the hotel restaurant, went outside, and breathed deep.
By then, the air had become damp from some wisps of fog off the river. That added enough fuel to my already sharpened curiosity that I felt myself being beckoned to walk to the other side of the street and into the station.
A man with a huge mop was giving the large waiting room floor the last wipe down of the day with the sound of his every step echoing off the hard walls. He looked up, smiled, then continued his work. Of the several caged ticket windows, only one was lit to apparently accommodate whoever was in there shuffling paperwork.
With a slow walk, I made it across the wide lobby area then through double doors to the boarding area — a huge room with several long concrete platforms each separated by railroad tracks that at the far end disappeared into the outside darkness. Hanging from the ceiling were fluorescent light fixtures, their cold and uninviting glare sufficient for the platforms and their respective tracks but failing to penetrate the darker corners.
The room’s expansiveness was capable of accommodating a flurry of several trains and hundreds of passengers, yet on that night I was the only one there — feeling no need to hurry and being satisfied with occasional glances.
Then I saw it.
Barely fifty feet away was a large steel-wheeled baggage cart, not empty or loaded with luggage, but rather holding a casket draped with an American flag. A wave of reverence and wonder swept over me as I approached the cart for a closer look.
The only identifier was a tag with numbers and barely enough information for me to guess the casket’s journey had begun on the West Coast and would soon end at a local funeral home.
Suddenly, none of it mattered. I was overcome not so much by being near the casket, but rather what lay inside of it — a soldier honored as a fallen hero — someone’s loving son and perhaps a spirited brother, devoted father, faithful husband, true friend. A life sacrificed in the defending of nation, state, community, and family.
Inside that casket was a soldier who began life as a baby and grew up to attempt and succeed in leaving an indelible mark to be recognized and remembered.
Then there was me, not merely being there, but rather realizing that from that point forward I would remember what I was seeing and feeling as I pieced together in my own mind the cherished and intertwined elements of God, Mother, and Country.
I aimlessly walked back outside then turned toward the corner of the building where the bulldozers had been working. A few seconds later I heard a crunching sound. I looked down to see I had stepped on an irregularly shaped piece of tile flooring laid by a worker who so many years before had pressed the small squares of still beautiful blue tile into fresh cement.
Nearby was a piece of mirror still attached to the frame. I could only wonder how many travelers had used it to primp before boarding to impress fellow travelers and freshen up after arriving to look good for a business associate, relative, or lustful lover.
For no reason except a felt urge to connect myself even more firmly to the past, I picked up both items, wrapped them in a piece of newspaper and stuffed them into my pocket.
The hotel was directly across the street, but giving in to my reluctance to return to my room of four walls, I sat on a step and pushed away all thoughts except those related to what had just happened.
That’s when I silently and thankfully acknowledged all soldiers whose mission has always been to defend everything that all of us hold dear.
