I remember today
A night long ago
At the N&W passenger depot
At Cambria Virginia
I was six years old it was 1944
I rode there with my father to visit
His friend the Station Agent
As he sat behind a big desk laden
With rubber stamps and streams of tickets
In a corner of the waiting room
Sat on wooden benches a family in grief
Mother father two daughters
Eyes cast to the floor
Waiting for a train to come
My father left me with his friend
Walked to speak with the family
In hushed tones I remember
The westbound train rolled in
Pulled by a massive steam engine
Slowed to a hissing stop
The Railway Express Agency car
Opposite the depot’s freight room door
The Express Agency car’s door slid open
The grieving family walked out on the platform
To be greeted by the train’s conductor
From the Express Agency office rolled
A baggage cart
High steel wheeled
Pulled by its tongue by an Agency clerk
The cart’s bed aligned with the floor of the Express Car
Two clerks in the car
Eased a casket onto the cart
Containing the remains of the soldier son and brother
Of the grieving parents and siblings
Parked nearby sat a black Cadillac hearse
The mortician’s driver behind its wheel
Dressed in a dark suit white shirt and silver tie
He backed the hearse to the door of the Express Agency
The casket was eased from the baggage cart into the hearse
Rollers in the floor of the hearse served their purpose
The hearse pulled away from the depot
Followed by a black 39 Ford sedan carrying the dead soldier’s family
My father drove our 38 Chevy sedan
Behind the car of the family
Keeping a respectful distance
Until In Christiansburg the hearse and sedan
Turned into the mortician’s establishment
My father drove silently by
And on to our home on West Main Street
He’d uttered not a word on our drive
Then and there I learned the meaning of loss and of grief