Look Both Ways

The original UborkaHaza was opposite a small railway station, which location had its pros and cons. It was possible to run back to the house and change your shoes between buying your tickets and getting on the train, should the need arise. The house was so dusty that it was never worth actually doing any dusting. Late night drunks occasionally vandalised the car or had slanging matches across the tracks.

Last night a teenage boy was killed when he climbed the gates at the level crossing, to cross the line. If only he had realised, when he chose not to use either of the two footbridges, that today they would be littered with cellophane-wrapped floral tributes to his idiocy. Bernard and I walked past the station tonight, and the schoolkids have placed a row of candles along the station wall.

For Pete, the tragedy is that his parents have poured their energies into raising that child for 17 years, only for him to throw it away on one terribly wrong decision. We think in a very parentcentric way these days. I look at older boys and try to imagine Bernard wearing those falling-down jeans, coming home with a tattoo or an unsuitable girl, driving an unroadworthy car. We can’t teach him not to make the wrong decisions, or to think of what it means to us every time he does something dangerous, or even to call home occasionally when he goes to university. But our parents didn’t manage to teach us not to make the wrong decisions, either, and we manage to get by.

That teenager was somebody’s baby too, with a mum who thought she would never be able to let him go. I pray that a tattoo is all I ever have to worry about.