Stranger on a Train — Good Friday 2010

On Good Friday in 2010, we had to pick up our car, the car that our daughter Annie’s dead or dying body had been pulled from in 2008, her body then stuffed behind a dumpster in Baltimore. The police had impounded the car as evidence for over a year. Then, when they shut down their first so-called “investigation,” they demanded we collect it — ASAP! Or face back charges for impoundment! So we had it towed to a shop, where it was repaired, carefully — made drive-able, but otherwise preserved. After all, it was a crime scene.

Now, April 2, 2010, it was time to pick the car up. Dan would make the trip out by subway, dreading the drive home in the car that Annie may have died in. Mary Jane mentioned the terrible trip in an e-mail to our pastor, “Father Chuck.” In empathetic response, he noted that the other riders on the train would have no idea of Dan’s painful ordeal.

Here is Dan’s reply e-mail to Father Chuck:

Dan here, Father Chuck. I don’t write you often, but I’ll always listen to a good man.

Your answer to Mary Jane was wonderful, and beautifully balanced. Thanks. But that’s not why I’m writing. (Heck, we’re used to that from you!)

I’m writing because of what you said about my trip. I’m also used to your love, and empathy. Don’t take them for granted, but I’m not surprised to re-encounter them.

But about my trip. One condensed version: it was the hardest single thing I’ve ever done. I was fine, sort of, operating on auto-drive — until I got the car, and actually had to drive it. I’d already concentrated on the oblique angle, not thinking about what I was doing, not “looking” directly at It. But in the stupid car, even still at an oblique, I was nonetheless overwhelmed. I could hardly breathe, my vision was telescope-tunneled, my heart was pounding…almost fainting. Panic attack, I guess. Powered through it, and powered through it, and powered through it, until I finally got home. It only took 15 minutes of driving, but it was the way of my cross this Good Friday. This life. God bless my beautiful Mary Jane, she was waiting outside for me, opened the garage door, I inched that damned car in. Mary Jane crawled in the back seat, crying, sobbing, and I couldn’t help her. I lurched out of the front seat, told her I had to go before I passed out, and I staggered in the house, hanging onto the walls. Came closest then to passing out, then passed a terrible hour…both of us.

But about my trip. Your empathetic comment about my fellow riders on the train being oblivious to my ordeal…well, let me tell you.

As I got on the Green Line train at L’Enfant Plaza this morning, bound for Branch Avenue by way of Anacostia, I held back as usual for others, especially women, boarding with me. One woman held back further. I boarded, and she fell in behind me. I sat in one of the many available seats, and she stood. The doors closed, and the train headed off. A minute or so on the way to the next stop, the standing woman spoke.

“God told me that there is someone on this train, in this car, who has lost all hope,” she firmly announced to the dozen or so of us. “I’m here to tell you that God loves you, He loves all of you!” She then launched into a wonderful homily, speaking of how Christ hung on the cross for her, to save her from drug addiction thirty years ago, how He could have descended with ease, but hung there for her, and for us. His resurrection. Our sin. The Rapture. (“We could all be gone before the next stop…”) Redemption.

She spoke easily through five stops, pausing only briefly for a few Amens from me and one other rider. She got off at Southern Avenue, coincidentally with me. I thanked her for her wonderful words, gave her a safe, sideways hug, and wished her a Happy Easter. We went our separate ways.

Oh. The last thing I said to Mary Jane, as she dropped me off at the Huntington Metro station, was, “Well, I haven’t given up hope, not yet anyway. But I’m awful discouraged…I love you, honey.”

I wondered as the woman spoke, Father Chuck, and I wondered as I read your empathetic comment below, about my fellow travelers being oblivious to my journey, and I wonder now…did she see behind my commuter’s mask, and sense my despair? Is she a demented street lady, or an angel, or a saint-in-waiting? Does she do this regularly, and randomly, and to similar effect? How many of us are bluffing our way through life? Waiting only to be laid bare by the most casual of strangers? A messenger of God.

I haven’t lost hope, so He couldn’t have been speaking to me. I think. But what do I know?

I know this. Any astronomer or physicist worth his salt can confirm it. 1977 light-years from Calvary, the 33-year old Christ hangs still on the Cross, waiting only to be glimpsed. Three light-days closer, He is Risen. An everlasting sacrifice. And everlasting redemption. Waiting only to be glimpsed. By me, and by you. By Mary Jane. By our Sam. And by our Annie, and her killer.

Sorry to have rambled, Father Chuck, but your comment went straight to the heart. I wanted to tell you how sound you are, and how wrong you were. I wanted to tell you about my tiny miracle this Good Friday.