Waiting for A

When I think about him, which is almost all the time, I remember him waiting for me.

The night we met, he was standing on the Schemerhorn subway station waiting for the D train. It was the only time I had ever seen him there. Odd because for the past six months while attending St. John’s Evening College, I had always traveled home from that very same location.

In the years that followed after that cold January night when our magic carpet of love was a subway train, he waited for me often.

Sometimes in airports, occasionally at the LIRR train station in Massapequa.

Often impatiently in our car while I spent endless time shopping.

Later in hospital rooms quietly wondering when I would return.

Now when I gaze out my window and see the empty bench, I know he is still waiting there for me even though I can’t see him.

I am the one waiting now. I don’t know when he will return for me or if I will see him sitting there quietly until I join him.

However, I do know he will be there.

Because he always was, throughout the 59 years after that snowy night when our paths crossed in a deserted Brooklyn subway station.

He was never late, always reliable and even at random moments when our viewpoints clashed, I knew he would still wait for me.

We had always hoped to catch the last train together, but his arrived earlier than mine, so that didn’t happen.

It has been challenging waiting alone for mine, but easier when I remember he will be there whenever it comes.