This poem below, The Station, is an altered version I wrote, of a poem I discovered in 2001 while on my LDS mission in Holland, called "The Station" by Robert Hastings. I used it all the time on my mission and referenced it at my moms funeral, and have done everything in my power to never forget the importance of the journey of life we all are in.
Somewhere in the back of our minds, we all carry the same vision. A long train ride across an endless landscape. We sit by the window and watch it all slide past; children waving from a crossing, cattle dotting a hillside, smoke rising from a plant in the distance, fields giving way to valleys giving way to mountains. Winter. Summer. The whole thing bleeding together into one long blur we barely notice.
But we're not really watching. We're waiting.
We're waiting for the station.
We tell ourselves that's where life begins. When I turn 18. When I get the promotion. When the kids are grown. When I retire. Then. Then I'll finally live.
We're all on different trains, taking different routes, stopping at different places along the way. But every single one of us is heading to the same station.
And the station doesn't care about your itinerary. It doesn't care how many stops you skipped or how many you savored. It's just there, waiting at the end of the line, same as it waits for everyone. Same as it has always waited.
So the question is what you'll leave behind when you arrive.
Regret is a thief and so is fear. They'll pick your pockets while you pace the aisles, counting miles, cursing the minutes, waiting for some future that was never guaranteed. And while you wait, the view keeps sliding past. The people beside you keep getting older. Keep getting off at their stops.
Stop waiting.
Sew quilts of memories.
Stitch together the ordinary weight of a Tuesday afternoon. The way your kid laughed at something silly. The silence that sat between you and someone you loved, comfortable and heavy all at once. The meals that didn't feel special until they were gone. The conversations you thought you'd have again.
These ordinary fragments, they're the only things that matter. They're the only warmth you get to make. And when you're gone, they're the only warmth you leave behind. Wrapped around the people who loved you. Keeping them company on their own ride to the station.
Life isn't lived at the station. It lives here, in the space between the miles.
The station will come soon enough.
Memento Vivere.
Memento Mori.
❤️
Jake
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