The man on the train

Like many adults from dysfunctional families, I was angry with my father for years over his failings as a parent. With counseling and a one-time encounter with him 35 years after he died, I found peace.

My father, Bill, drank and was emotionally and verbally abusive. Much of the time, it seemed he wanted nothing to do with his wife and kids. For as long as I can remember, he slept in a camper parked in the backyard.

As a teenager, Bill left an impoverished home in Cleveland during the Great Depression and road the rails. He bummed his way around the country and was on his own for years when he got drafted. While AWOL, he met my mother in a bar back home. Married her, and after the war, he went back to Cleveland to pick her up and take the train out to California.

The newlyweds landed in Los Angeles with a little money saved up and bought a corner store that sold candy and cigarettes. Bill ran the store, and Mom worked in a bank.

Bill was notorious for closing the store and going to the movies or hanging out in bars. My mom went to check on him during a lunch break and found a stranger behind the counter. The man said Bill gave him the store, and it turned out to be true. That is when they headed for the suburbs, where he started sleeping in the backyard.

I happened to mention the camper to my counselor.

Why do you think he slept out there?

He was a ramblin’ man.

Dad rode the rails and struggled to accept the responsibilities of family life. Sleeping in the camper made him feel unbridled.

Counseling helped me forgive my father, who died when I was in my early 20s. I saw him for the first time not as a broken child but as an adult, and I saw he had many wonderful qualities. Not that his behavior was justified, but at some point, you realize people can only do so much with what they have. Still, I wondered how my life might be different if I had felt a father’s love.

I left California shortly after high school and only came back about five years ago when I thought it was safe. I used to ride the bus to work. Most mornings, I walked to the Caltrain station to catch the early bus, which left at 5:30 a.m. A handful of us would gather in the dark at our stop near the train tracks and wait for the bus to pull up.

One morning, a freight train zoomed by headed south, toward Los Angeles. I looked up to watch it pass. As the last car pulled into view, I saw a young man in clothes that looked to be from the 1940s, sitting on the back smiling and waving at me.

It was my father, and I suddenly felt engulfed in his love.