'Now looking back it was made for me and you'
The Story So Far
Shannon Barry
Issue date: 12/7/06 Section: Opinion
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I stared at the wall, void of expression, remembering the last day I saw her walk out of my car.
Because, no matter what decision you make in life, each moment sets you up for a different path.
***
Yet it was this lack of focus, this attention to his ad campaign with Creative that the trouble had really begun in the first place.
"I've been diagnosed with cancer," she said.
And as she collapsed into his arms, his face remained expressionless to the words she had just uttered. He realized this was something he would have never been prepared for.
***
He slowly opened the wallet, flipped the photo insert to the right, past the picture of his now 25-year-old son, Patrick Michael.
***
"But no two human beings have the same thoughts, the same feelings, let alone the same genetic traits," she said.
He closed his laptop and pushed it to the side of the table, enjoying the last of the sunset.
"You're right. We don't. But we all have the same primal instincts; we breathe, we eat, we live, we die, but in between … that's when we create."
She opened up her bag and pulled out the book "The Celestine Prophecy."
***
As she looked out the train window, the night sky was darkening. She tilted her book and looked at the old man in the tweed jacket.
Of all the people on the train at this moment, from all walks of life: the crying baby now asleep in her mother's arms to the children skipping down the halls to the café car, life and death was around her.
"Don't you think it's interesting that each person on this train has their own history that brought them to this moment," she said out loud, but motioning in the way of the man.
He turned around and looked at her.
"And for one brief moment in the course of our lives, be it just one hour to 10 hours, we are all connected, together, on this train," she finished.
He smiled, realizing that however young she may have looked, there was a certain sincerity and wisdom that echoed through her words.
"Take you and me for example," she said. "I know that you were just looking at a picture of who I can only assume is your son, or someone very important to you."
She closed her book and put it on the seat next to her.
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