How a Stranger in a Train Station Revealed the Meaning in My Life

His hair was half gone, but covered by the fact he could be mid-fifties, graying, balding. The man shook where he stood a little. It was not cold.

He ambled over to stand beside where I was sitting, and I motioned to the seat next to me. He winced, skeptical of me, but sat down. Our exchange started as a simple question about the train, something easily forgettable by me but enough contact to startle him. He stuttered worse than any other person I had ever met, and I had to lean in closer to make out his chewed words.

“What brings you here?” I asked, curious that he acted as if he were waiting to get jumped. We stood in the Tuxedo, New York train station.

“Therrrapy. D-d-d-doc-c-c-tor”

There was a twitch I hadn’t seen before, a limp. What I couldn’t yet understand was why his mouth curved low, why he hunched when he could stand tall.

Our train passed by. He was going back to New Jersey while I was going into New York City. I was shocked to find out he was thirty-five. It was years ago, when he was in college, that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He had just had his third surgery to remove more of the tumor that wanted life, demanding more of him. This isn’t what he told me fully. His mouth twisted as he spoke of what was a part of him, and yet not him. I sat quietly, listening to his body. It pained him to speak, to process the words coming from him but were not him.

After he told me this story that made his body curl into itself, I asked him,

“Who do you want to become?”

“A professor,” his eyes changed, slowly. He stopped stuttering. I saw as he changed from slumped to open-shouldered, palms widening, mouth turning to smile.

“I want to teach.”

He wanted to be someone for somebody.

“I’ve been taking classes,” he spoke excitedly, almost whispering it and ducking low as if he were divulging a secret plan. “It’s not certain… it’s not. I want to.” He shook, smiling, as the rest of this future life poured from him.

A father, a husband. A teacher. He so wanted to teach that it hurt to see him not. There is a quote by Benjamin Franklin, “That which hurts, instructs.” The man before me who shook a little and slumped low knew both sides of the worst pain. He knew the kind that made you wake up hurting, and he knew the kind that made you want to let go.

We did not exchange contact information. In some way, we both knew this moment would be our time together. I sadly forget this man’s name.

Before I boarded my train, he gave me the greatest gift I have ever received from a stranger. He took my hand, looked me in the eye, and told me something that will forever haunt me and be the reason I do what I do.

“You are a bridge.”

This man, who had to choose every word so carefully, took his time to say this to me. Because I listened to him, took the time and took him in. I didn’t tell him that I felt like I was him. The week before I had been in the hospital and couldn’t understand why. Why did I have something no one could diagnose? Why was I being told I was crazy? Why did my life feel so ridiculous?

Why? Why? Why?

I suddenly understood. I am a bridge. Looking at this man, who shook a little and limped a little and did not fit in, I realized who I was. Neither Health nor Illness, neither Accepted nor Other. Student. Patient. Entrepreneur. Nothing had ever fit.

I finally knew that I was never meant to.

I was meant to be in-between so I could understand. It took me a long time to realize what this man had really said to me. It was not the ability of understanding, but what enabled me to. Because I myself would never be fully understood, it allowed me to take neither side. It allowed me to not just understand that person, but be that person. I was meant to be the Bridge.