While I was in Auto Zone about a battery, a young man spoke, and I barely returned his greeting. Then, he said, "Aren't you Mrs. *****?" Stunned, I said I was. It turns out he was a friend of my son. He asked about my son. I asked what he was doing. It turns out he works for CSX, a railroad line that runs through area.
We talked for a bit, and I asked how a person would get to ride on that little car that rides the track and is moved by the up and down motion of a handle. This little car probably has a name. He informed me those were no longer used.
Crushed! Well, I had always wanted to ride one of those someday. This dream deferred had dried up like a raisin in the sun.
It had been 38 years since I had seen this man as a child. Adults do not change as much over the years as children do. As I searched his face, I could not see the child I knew. Sometimes, I can after I am given a name.
Just a note: It is cold here, very cold in the house with heat as high as it can go. No Wonder! It is 8 degrees F here at 4:30 am.
Have you ever had a child, now grown, approach you, remembering you from so many years before? How do you feel in that one brief moment? Have you ever had a whim about doing something only to find that experience was no longer available?
I have adult friends of my sons who speak to me all the time. If they were not the close friends I saw regularly I have no idea who they are until they tell me their names.
ReplyDeleteAnne,
DeleteOne of my daughter's friends spoke very familiarly as I looked at her with a blank look. When she told me her name, she was a child I knew well and for a long time. I asked her to tell me her name next time she spoke. She did several months later, just a "hi,(her name)!" Maybe someday I will recognize her on my own.
I remember those little pump up and down rail road cars you spoke of!!!! Kind of like a teeter-toter, which moved. But no, I never rode one. ,-))))
ReplyDeleteYes, I have people who knew/know my children, speak to me. And no, don't always know them. Come on! People change!
I don't care for it, when contemporaries expect me to remember them, after years. Say your name, person. I'm not a computer. >,-)))
I know! My blank look means I have forgotten your name.
DeleteI worked in the office of a small elementary school for 30 years, so former students come up to me in the grocery store all the time and say, "Do you remember me?" Of course I don't, so have to ask their name and then I usually can remember. I'm glad that they remember me!
ReplyDeletekt,
DeleteThirty years after I subbed for a fifth grader, she came up to me. She was my height and had children who were in hs. It was such as shock, and no, I did not recognize her. I could only wonder how I got so old. And, that was about ten years ago.
I have had folks come up to me, and similarly I may have seen someone and the face jogs a memory.
ReplyDeleteIt's like looking back at photographs, yes we age but do our faces change that much? Sometimes I think the answer is no.
All the best Jan
We adults do not change as much as children do. We may see the child in the adult once we know who the child is. However, some children look similar and adults change with weight gain, hair loss, and hair color. It works that way for me, it seems.
Delete