BUS STORY # 290 (Kids and Grownups)

Get on The Bus Event 2009, © All Rights Reserved, a photo by CACorrections on Flickr.

From back to front, the three-seater facing the rear exit door is filled with a large, stuffed canvas tote, a mom, and her kindergarden-age daughter. In front of them is a stroller with a boy in the one-year-old range. 

Mom and daughter are having a great time. They are playing some kind of word game, and they are both into it, and each other. There’s a lot of animated back-and-forth, some squealing, and much laughter. One of the rewards is a kiss from mom. 

It would be hard to imagine a happier little girl’s face. 

The boy is sitting quietly in his stroller. He’s oblivious to what’s going on between his mom and sister, and is fixated on the high school kid sitting next to me who’s eating a candy bar. I’m wondering if this means he’s hungry. 

Several stops later, a young man and woman board the bus and work their way to the back. 

The game is interrupted when mom gets up and she and the guy hug. Then she and the woman hug. Then the couple takes the empty seat just forward of the bench seat. 

It is now the three adults who are interacting, and the little girl is looking up at them, moving from face to face, her own face fretful and imploring and hopeful that things will get back to where they were with mom. 

Things don’t, of course. I can see the moment she gives up hope. She drops her head, shifts her gaze to some middle distance across the aisle. 

It would be hard to imagine a more disconsolate little girl’s face. 

The young man reaches down and rubs the head of the little boy. The little boy, facing toward the back, is startled. He twists toward mom, trying to see where this rubbing is coming from. 

The man stops for a bit, then resumes. The kid starts to cry. His sister leans forward in her seat and stretches out her arm and hand. Her brother sees her hand and grasps it. 

They hold on tightly to one another.

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The photo at the top of this story is titled “Get on The Bus Event 2009," © All Rights Reserved, and is posted with the kind permission of CACorrections. You can see all CACorrections’s photos on Flickr at: CACorrections' photostream.