A fellow traveler by chance enhances train ride of life

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

If life is a train ride, with all of us on our own, each in individual cars, bumping and chugging and sometimes careening down the tracks, then my time with Wilmha was a series of quick but welcome visits that happened many miles and many years ago.

We were in the middle of our ride when we met, the theoretical middle, miles of life already lived and, barring cataclysm, miles more to go. We met solely because of our husbands, because a few times a year they dragged us with them to meetings and conventions and there we were, thrown together, total strangers, but seatmates suddenly, at dinners and on sightseeing trips and late at night sharing a cocktail and a couch in some hospitality suite. I met Flo and Madeline first, in Atlanta in August 1977. A few months later I met Wilmha. She was the most serious of the three, strong, sturdy stock from Lincoln, Neb., practical and dependable. The three of them were good friends, already. But they made space for me. They took me under their wings that first year I was new to the association. They called every morning and said, "Want to meet for breakfast?" or "We're going to an art museum. Want to come?"

They were older, their children grown, in their late teens and early 20s, mine still babies when our friendship began. It was a friendship totally dependent upon geography. When we were in the same place, we were always together. When we were apart, we never even picked up a phone to call. We'd meet after months and hug, talk, laugh and play catch-up, and although we knew that one day things would change, that our husbands would move on, which meant we'd move on, too, and out of each other's lives, we behaved as if the ride we were taking together would last forever.

The years are mixed up in my head, now, like photographs of places you're so sure you'll remember you don't bother to label or date them. Wilmha and I walked on a glacier together. We stood in line in a windstorm in the badlands of South Dakota waiting to use a porta-potty. We bumped into Walter Matthau on Rodeo Drive and then told Madeline and Flo who had ducked into a shop and missed him.

I got us lost driving back to the hotel that day, and it was Wilmha who remained calm and suggested we stop and buy a map. She became the official co-pilot after that, always in the passenger seat, map in hand. She found an atomic energy museum in the middle of nowhere, an open air market outside of Baton Rouge, every antique shop Madeleine wanted to explore and all the off the beaten path used bookstores I ever mentioned.  

The year my husband became president of this organization, Madeline and Flo and a woman named Kathy decided that I should have a proper dress for the occasion. They dragged me to a fancy boutique in Toronto and refused to leave until I bought an overpriced black organza cocktail dress. Wilmha was the only one who stood in the shop and said, "I like the dress you brought with you." That's how she was. The pretty things that people wore didn't impress her. What they said and how they behaved? That was a different story.

Madeline was the first to stop coming to the meetings. Then it was Flo. And then one day, it was all of us. It happens. Just like that. People slip away. The train rolls on and the scenery changes and other people come and sit beside you. And time passes, and the years slip by and before you know it, people you used to know, you don't know anymore.

We sent cards for a while, Christmas cards mostly, hastily signed with promises of more news later. But we never followed up. After a time we got our information secondhand, hearing about one another. A few years ago, I heard that one of Wilmha's sons had died. I wrote to her then. And phoned. Wilmha so loved her boys. She had three of them. One was married to a woman who managed a bookstore. I remember how pleased Wilmha was about that.

Wilmha had heart surgery last month. I didn't know until after. We got an e-mail saying that there were complications. Then we got an e-mail saying that Wilmha had died.

We shared so little time on this earth together. We were seatmates for a series of short trips many years ago. But I enjoyed my ride with Wilmha. I'm grateful I knew her. I'm glad we met.