A train connection no one expected. Power fails, conversation begins.

When technology dies, souls can meet. Lives can change.

I was travelling yesterday. I took a train for the first time in many years. I took my seat and, like pretty much everyone I could see from that point, I took out my phone. I was travelling alone. I was also seated on my own.
However, something happened to the two people in the seats directly in front of me that had me thinking about life on so many levels. I started to ignore the phone, looked at the views rushing by and listened to the scene that played out less than 3 feet ahead.
The seats in front of me were constructed two abreast each side of a table, facing each other. Many industrious professionals use the journey to use the laptop. To be fair, this activity should also include the game players, the video watchers and the bored internet surfers. Such seemed to be the case for the 30 something young man sat in the seat directly in front of me.

After searching for a power source due to a dying battery I heard him say “Oh well! I was only going to play my game. I guess I’ll have to read the paper or look out of the window.”
The Muslim lady (I could tell by her attire) opposite him kindly offered the use of her power supply, but he graciously declined.
This sole act of power failure followed by a kind gesture changed that young man’s journey, possibly his outlook and definitely the chance has been created to aid his elderly grandfather. Read on.
The lady, obviously confident, asked him if he was on a long journey. A reasonable question bearing in mind his need for power for his laptop. As the conversation they struck up unfolded it was stated that he had travelled from Australia to be at a funeral, so this would most definitely not be termed as a long journey.
In comparison, no journey in the UK is a long journey. As they talked, the lady being confident and clever in her questions prompted him to discussed his grandmother’s funeral, her prior illness, his grandfather’s difficulty and so on. It was obviously that even at a distance this young man cared greatly for his grandparents. As the conversation moved forward, the love for his whole family and his appreciation of them was spoken of. It was wonderful to hear.
I felt a little guilty eavesdropping, but we were on a public service and he was inches away. I could not not hear.
They continued, and he said that he appreciated her kind words etc. I zoned out to a text received.
When I re-joined the play of life unfolding before me the lady stated that she was a bereavement councillor. Now what are the chances of that?
They talked more. They talked about how he could (or get his family to) contact various support groups for his bereaved grandfather, how he should also seek support, how he shouldn’t just ‘try and be strong’ because in the end it weakens you. She was lovely, and he took it all on board.
Another text and I was off but part three had me listening to a young man who was happy in the new life he had created in a foreign country, to the point he admitted being a bully when young and had only recently took it upon himself to contact those he had been so cruel to and apologise deeply for his actions. How gallant. How wonderful. How brave. To put himself out there to be shot down could not have been easy but in doing so he has cleared his history to lighten the load for his future. Amazing.
It turned out that he was a chef. The lady said her son had just qualified – as a chef. More in common. Then they appeared to be talking about travel. He had visited the country of her roots and she revelled in telling him things he maybe didn’t know.
Forty minutes later I had to alight the train, but I know that for two people that journey will be spoken of for days to come and remembered for longer. And who knows, Grandad may use the services advised by the pleasant counsellor, and her son may use the advice the young chef, with a power failed laptop, had offered. And therefore, in a small way the universe will change for more than just those two people.
Things can be achieved when we talk!