DIE ANOTHER DAY - Part II

"I have juice."

In that singular moment, the rocking slows down.  Before she can start up again, I grab the back of her shirt and just hold it.  I find more strength in that arm than I've ever found.  She tells me barely audibly to let go, it doesn't matter.  "It doesn't matter... this fever never ends. It never ends."  She looks like she's getting hotter by the second.  Two minutes.  She doesn't look at me but I whisper to her "If you don't matter, then neither of us does."  She slowly turns her head, still bent over, partly towards me and says in a trembling voice "Is it cold?"  "Very, I just bought it" I say. "Do you want it?" She looks me right in the eye, as if at first perhaps suspicious.  "Take it --  it's yours if you want it," I say. She mutters "Yes."

I tell her that she needs to move back from the edge.  One minute.  Right now I plead she needs to move back right now.  Her face is like that of a lost puppy.  I hold her shirt and gently pull her back.  She puts her hands on the platform and slowly raises herself up; I help keep her balance.  We move back to the wall.  I grab the bottle out of my bag and open it for her.  The roar of the train is audible.  "Thank you for caring" she says.  "Of course honey. Of course." I say.  As she takes the juice, her hand shakes and I help to steady it.  She explains to me that she is sick and always has fevers and if she doesn't get cold liquid when they spike her body begins to shut down and she starts to die.  I don't know what to say, so I just ask her if it's cold enough and she nods vigorously.  The train whisks into the station.  She looks directly at me and says "You're nice. You're very nice, you're so nice."  I rub her back.  I ask her if she wants to get on this train or she needs a minute to collect herself.  I tell her I'll wait with her for the next one.  "No this one is okay," she answers.

We get on the train, but don't sit together.  Very strangely, in the moment that the doors open, everything shifts slightly.  The train is pretty full.  She sits down, and I stand about 10 feet away.  She is clutching the juice bottle, drinking ravenously.  I look over at her several times, and each time she is drinking but staring directly at me.  As we near St. George I feel compelled to go over and hug her, but there isn't enough time.  Instead I just look over one more time and smile.  She mouths "Thank you. You're so nice," as the train reaches my stop.  I put my hand on my heart and then blow her a kiss.  She smiles.  The door opens and I get off the train.  I am shaking.

You may have pictured as you read this that she and I were alone on that subway platform.  That wasn't the case.  When I arrived at Osgoode station, there were at least THIRTY people on the northbound side.  They were engaged in conversations, laughing, horsing around with friends.  Not ONE of them did anything to assist the woman crouched down with her feet hanging over the edge of the platform.  NOT ONE.  I was shattered by that realization.  For days.  Shattered by the fact that as compassionate as many claim to be, they are compassionate only when it is easy to be.  When they can pity people from a distance or write cheques to charities or attend benefits.  Had she jumped, they all would've been on the news giving eyewitness testimony and acting devastated.  But where were they when she needed them?  Why was meeting someone who acted "nice" so overwhelming for her that she felt the need to repeat it so many times?  It wasn't until I began talking to her that a few people looked in her direction.  It was as if they could acknowledge her now that they didn't have to actually do anything.  I am still grappling with that, and have shed tears over it a few days this week.

I never asked her her name.  I felt afterwards that I should have -- that maybe that would've made her feel even more cared for, more valid.  But I hope that those moments we spent together made her feel loved, made her feel SEEN.  Jesus said "Whatever you do to the least of my children, you do unto me."  I believe that.  I believe that to my core.  It was the first day of June, and so in my heart I have named her June.  I hope that she is still here among us, still hanging on.  And I hope for the sake of her spirit that she never noticed the thirty people who chose to ignore, and instead only remembers the one who didn't.  I will try to remember only her, and not the others.  She blessed me when she entered my life and became part of my story.  I feel honoured to have had her cross my path, and inspired by her courage.  I know, Lord knows I know, how hard it can be to find the strength to keep living.  She has lived in my heart every moment of the last eight days, and always will.

Be brave, sweet June.  Bless you.

- TT
_____________________

Return to PART I