lost underground

a woman approached me at the dekalb station in brooklyn yesterday. i'd probably put her in her 50s, just a little younger than my mother. she must've been banking on the fact that i could speak cantonese. she lucked out. she asked me if this was where she would catch the N train. i told her the N train actually doesn't stop at this station. she would need to take the R train to the next station to connect to the N train. she said that she had seen several R trains go by, that she had been waiting at this station for over an hour, basically waiting for something that would never arrive.

immediately, i thought, this is a situation i could totally see my mother getting into if she were left to travel in the city by herself. i told her that i was waiting for the R train anyway, going in the same direction as she needed to go. she said she'd stick with me. i nodded okay.

she noticed that i was reading something and asked if i was studying. i told her i was just reading a magazine. just to make sure i wasn't pointing her in the wrong direction, i asked if she was heading into brooklyn or manhattan. she said brooklyn and then what i heard as "b-broadway." afterwards, i realized she was saying "bay parkway" which was in brooklyn, actually near the end of the N line. but at the time, i just assumed that there must be some other broadway in brooklyn, which is often the case that boroughs shared street names.

after a longer wait than normal, the R train finally arrived. she boarded with me and took a seat by the door. with the only other seat available blocked by shopping bags, i stood, holding onto a pole. i asked her if she was on her way to visit someone. she said she was actually on her way to have her portrait taken. only then did i realize she was dressed in relatively bright colors, including lots of red, typical of the chinese.

soon, we arrived at the station where she needed to transfer to the N train. i told her it would be really easy to transfer, just to wait on the other side of the platform. she had shown no sense of fear, to my surprise, even though she was basically lost in a giant labyrinth beneath a thundering metropolis. still, i emphasized that the transfer and the rest of her journey should be easy, to give her confidence. before she got off the train, she thanked me, patted my cheek, and squeezed my hand. i wanted to tell her to take care but couldn't even mutter it. i almost wanted to accompany her the rest of her way.

even after i arrived home, i couldn't help but wonder if that woman made it to her destination okay. how much english can she read? would she be able to tell which station she needs to get off? obviously, she knew her alphabet, but i imagine that her english level isn't far from my mother's. i thought it brave of her to travel alone, but at the same time, i felt slightly frustrated that no one accompanied her. i just can't imagine myself letting my mother go on the ny metro alone. but at some point, i guess we all must let go a bit, as parent or child, of each other because, at the end, we all will turn out okay, in one way or another.