I got on an Amtrak train at Union Station to go back down to Indianapolis in 1981. My oldman gave me a Walkman to listen to my cassettes on that four and a half hour trip to exile.
“Don’t tell your Stepmother that I got you this Moose!”
Until recently I never comprehended that my dad was hiding something or lying to someone who loved him.
I settled down in my usual seat on my train and turned on the Walkman. My Beatles mix tape was in the cartridge and “In My Life” started playing.
It is one of many songs I hear today that suddenly reminds me of all those train rides between Chicago and Indianapolis, between my father and my mother.
When my father died last year I found out I had a brother that was eight years older than me. Actually a brother and a sister….. both hidden from me.
Like the Walkman my stepmother never knew about…. I never knew I had siblings.
My older sister died just when I found out this news, but suddenly I had a brother and his arrival filled the void my father left.
My older brother died yesterday in a Covid ward in Arkansas. I never got a chance
To meet him…… Stephen Shepley, 8/30/58-10/22/21… for me it was only 11/1/20-10/22/21
My dad hid from his wife a cassette player that gave me joy during the darkest years of my early life. My dad hid from me….probably hid from himself…. a family.
I was an only child on a 197 mile ride. A lonely child that needed an older brother and sister.
I’ll never know the truth…. It’s dead. I’m so pissed at my dad right now, but I have to get over it because he is walking with my brother in heaven today…..
…. And I’m walking with the Shepkids today!
I just need to make sure I never give George, Fritz or Hazel a Walkman……
