Endless youth

My father is 83. If I remember correctly, I’m in my twenties. Each step I take with him is slower than most, but even in today’s world of “time is money”, we have a blast on the journeys we occasionally share together. The relative speed of cultural progression often tests it’s mischief and tricks on us, though you’ll hear us telling it to go to hell.

This is no ordinary trip. It’s quest to get my dad, a proper old timer from the american Midwest, to a tiny village in the south of France. He’ll be the first of the family to visit his brothers grave. WWII was hell. My old man never thought he’d wait so long before being close to his brother again. He was just a kid when my uncle left on deployment, the youngest of about a dozen.

At his age, we know this may be the last chance to “backpack” our way there from my home in the south of Spain. Older folks are allowed to backpack with a small suitcase, a privilege earned by making it to the golden years.
A bomb threat halfway to the promised land stops our little french train car in it’s tracks for hours. My elderly best friend is worried, but we finally make it to Lyon by evening, albeit having missed our next train. I’m certain of only one thing, I’m feeling a bit tired, so he is too.

We have the luck of arriving at a time when all the accommodation in the area is booked up for some sort of city wide event that we really don’t care about. We want a bed and maybe a beer. My dad likes the buzz it gives him along with his pain meds. He’s a silver linings kind of guy. The cheapest option is in the hundreds of euros, and my father scoffs at the notion of paying that much for a few hours of rest. We go for a walk and find ourselves back at the train station where there's a convenient little park with grass, flowers and benches nearby. I find us a couple bottles of local brew while he looks after our stuff.

This is all it takes for my father to be young again. Younger than the college students filing by with their Friday night party zen. Younger than the couple making out in the grass not far enough away from our perch. As young as the day his brother left home for the last time.

He can’t stop enjoying the fact that he’s 80 and sleeping on a park bench, but we actually didn't sleep a wink that night.