Morley and Me

I worked a GO train yesterday. Morley was the brakeman. There’s only one hogger anymore on GO trains, Ms J, and so the company has ordered the brakeman to ride with the hogger as a second pair of eyes. For safety, you know. Safety. Pfff. Anyway, Morley and I struck up a conversation on the locomotive as we made our way to Oshawa from Union Station.

We were talking about the way things used to be and I told Morley about Dad’s book. Ten years ago, Dad wrote his memoirs. I helped him put his story into a book which we printed. We made twenty copies and Dad shared his book with family and treasured friends. There’s a copy in Ottawa on file with the National Archives. Morley was quite fascinated with the book and in the man who’d lived such an interesting Life.

“Who was your dad?” he asked. “Was he famous or something?”

It bothered me a bit to hear him refer to Dad in the past tense. He is still alive, after all. I offered him the correction and told him no, my dad’s not famous. He’s just my dad.

“I think he’s the most interesting guy in the world,” I said. “But that’s because he’s my dad.”

I glanced over at Morley and he was smiling. I knew he understood completely and so I added, “And I love him.”

“You’re lucky to still have him,” said Morley. “My dad died in 1989. Cancer and a heart attack. He was sixty-nine. How old is your dad?”

We passed under a bridge just then and the roar of the locomotive made conversation difficult. I waited til we emerged into the sunshine again before I spoke.

“Eighty-five.”

Morley nodded and in the easy lull that followed, I wondered how it felt for him after eighteen years. Did he still think of his dad? Still miss him? Does the sadness ever go away?

I rang the bell for a crossing and watched as a car driver hurried to beat the gates.

“Did he know you hired on the railroad?” I asked.

“Oh God, yeah. He was so proud of me when I ...”

His voice trailed off then and I looked over at him. Morley raised his hand and waved me off. His cheeks were wet with tears.

I looked away and back to the track ahead of us. I knew the answer to my unspoken question. It doesn’t get better, Ms J. It just keeps hurting, I think. Tears filled my eyes and I wiped them away before they stained my cheeks. Morley didn’t know it perhaps, but we cried together like a pair of women – he for his beloved father, lost now to death, and I for my father, not yet gone but still adored.

Strange things happen sometimes when men are alone and feeling safe. Strange and utterly beautiful things happen, Ms J, when men are not afraid to be human.

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