A face in the crowd

Sallie Satterthwaitea has been a resident of Fayette Co. since 1971. She is involved in politics and the development of the community, and now a semi-retired housewife and grandma.

By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

We were in a motel in Eufaula last week, soaking up cool dry air and barricaded from biting flies and mosquitoes by windows and brick walls. Our long-awaited fall cruise ended five days after it began. It took us that long to admit to each other that we really weren’t having fun.

The motel had wireless access to the Web, the first I’d been able to hook onto since we’d left home. I had a column due.

Needless to say, there were two dozen or so junk messages to clear through before opening those that mattered, like the latest pictures of our favorite two-year-old and news from friends.

A member of our congregation had died. Our diligent Webmaster, as usual, had the announcement and a photo on the church’s Web site in less than a day. I recognized the face in the laptop display, but barely. I hadn’t really known her, although I did remember seeing her in church.

As I sat looking at the picture, I thought sadly that this lovely, lively face would not be seen again in this world.

What first caught my attention, I believe, was her glasses. My eyes roved from her face to the face in the mirror behind the computer. Her glasses were shaped like mine.

Her eyes were blue, and the folds of her eyelids were typical of older women.

My eyes are blue. And the eyelid folds are there, as well as the creases the smile pulls into the cheeks, like hers.

Her smile is warm and welcoming, slightly higher on one side than the other. Her hair is gray and softly curled. Mine is brown and straight.

Don’t misunderstand. I make no claims on the beauty of this gentle woman’s face. Rather, I marvel that two faces can have so many similar points, yet would never, ever be mistaken for each other in a busy train station.

Dave and I arrived in Brussels, Belgium, early one July morning, on the hunch that it had to be cooler in Europe than in Atlanta - unlike our visit two years ago when Europe baked in an unprecedented heat wave.

We could not immediately meet our “German” daughter Mary, however, because Dave’s large bag went missing. We spent the night in a no-frills motel accessible by shuttle bus, and returned next morning to Brussels Airport baggage claim.

No bag.

Now Mary had packed an itinerary to fill every day of her month-long vacation. She had made numerous hotel reservations and even had a four-berth cabin reserved on overnight ferries we were taking in the Scandinavian countries and the Baltics. She had not built much slack into our motor trip; we had to keep moving.

It was hard keeping in touch because we did not have a European cell phone, but we worked out plans to take the train from Brussels to Cologne, change trains there and meet her in Essen.

When trains pull into the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in European cities, some amazing things happen. The milling passengers waiting to board line up, tightly packed, on each side of the doors. When they clatter open, those who are getting off walk through the “welcoming” committee, whose members often lend a hand to hesitant travelers wrestling heavy bags down train steps. Like me.

Their generosity is to a degree self-serving because that train came in on time and will leave on time with very few minutes between. Nevertheless, I cheerfully accept any proffered assistance because I’m wearing new bifocals and I’m petrified of falling.

Now it’s our turn. We look around hastily to find where the train to Essen is coming in, and an escalator takes us to brightly lit subterranean corridors lined with shops, eateries, and more crowds likewise searching for their platform.

We find it and board, now becoming part of the crush of humanity looking for a seat, hefting bags overhead, begging the pardon of those whose toes we’re treading.

You can only imagine how many faces we have scrutinized in two days, in zigzag lines, security personnel rummaging through our bags, gate agents (who had been paging us, unheard), long lines at baggage claim, other travelers, train conductors trying to fathom our questions, mobs of people, people in the train stations enduring closer contact than northern Europeans prefer to tolerate, all these unsmiling faces blurring around us. And then ...

There it was. The face that mattered. The eyes that had not yet seen mine. An unsmiling face looking intently for ours. Such a well-known face, in sharp focus. Large blue eyes, straight brown hair, a face like mine yet also like Dave’s, the only face we knew in the thousands we had seen in the past two days.

Only a moment passed before our eyes locked and the smiles flashed, and I held her in my arms again. My Mary, my child. Let the crowd surge by. Rest your face against mine.