Memory and Loss
I watched the sun and clouds race across the mountains while I tried to decide if conditions were favorable for photography on this Sunday afternoon in January, 2020. Time was already short when I finally picked up my camera bag and headed out the door.
Harrisonburg, Virginia is across the Blue Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley. The Orange, Alexandria and Manassas RR reached Harrisonburg in 1868. The town was an important industrial center in the northern Shenandoah Valley and over the years was served by numerous railroads including the Baltimore & Ohio, Southern and Chesapeake Western. Norfolk Southern has a presence in Harrisonburg and the Shenandoah Valley Railroad operates the line from Staunton, Virginia to Pleasant Valley, just south of Harrisonburg. The history of the railroad in Harrisonburg is written in a stretch of tracks through a faded industrial landscape just west of downtown.
Skies were turning dark and the sun streamed over my shoulder, guiding me and illuminating the buildings and businesses along the tracks. It was a quiet afternoon and in the quiet I could hear whispers of the railroad’s past. Few cars passed by and the sidewalks were deserted.
The sun finally slipped below the dark clouds on the horizon and the light was suddenly gone. By the time I got back to the car, a cold wind was starting to blow and the day began to fade into memory.
I was anxious to be home. My wife had not been feeling well lately and I was worried about her. Little did I know as I drove across the mountain toward home that it would be many months before I would have another day trackside. The camera had given me a glimpse into the past that day, but it gave me no hint of the future.
I did not know on that Sunday afternoon in January, 2020, that the world would soon be in the midst of a global pandemic and I did not know that cancer lurked in my wife’s body and that it would take her life in just eighteen months.
Endlessly, the present turns into the past, and the future is a journey that we are always beginning. And life goes on.
Edd Fuller, Editor
Edd, my condolences on the loss of your loved one. Such a beautiful way of sharing your loss in a context we can all share.
How deeply moving. It is remarkable that you are able to give your subscribers such a lovely gift in the context of your terrible loss. I thank you for the elegiac narration and beautifully illuminated photos, and I wish you well.
So sorry for your loss.
Poignant and melancholic, perfectly pictured in those empty streets and wan afternoon sun. So sorry for your loss.
Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal reflection, Edd.
Beautiful story and pictures. Thanks for letting us into your life. Peace
Returning to places of the past can bring up many reflections of earlier times. I have on the few opportunities I have had to return to see the NY Connecting RR freight line to Bay Ridge. It is no longer anything of what it was and I know the same holds true for me after 76 years. It has always been like this and I suppose it will continue to be so. Thanks for sharing yours so poignantly. What I found most profound was not a single rail car or engine in sight. As Bob Hope told us on his tour in Vietnam ………….”Thanks for the memories”.