Words From A Stranger

Last month I took on the task of travelling a near 3 hour journey on the train to visit my parents down south. 3 hours which did not include the:
-waking up early to double check my packing
-make my self look half presentable
-feed O his breakfast
-catch the 45minute bus to the train station,
-buy lunch and pick up his favourite magazine,
-wait an hour as I'm either ridiculously early or late (thankfully I was early),
-change a number 2 nappy by the sinks in the female toilets as they decided to do maintenance work on ALL THREE baby changing facilities at the same time,
-get down to the correct platform for them to announce with 3minutes to go that they would in fact be changing platform from no.9 to no.11,
-to have to run to the lift, then run to the other lift,
-be shoved on the carriage without baby changing facilities or anywhere for me to put my enormous pram (Que a panic attack but luckily two lovely ladies helping)

All that while lugging around a big hiking backpack, 3 carrier bags, a big pram of which also had a normal backpack shoved underneath and making sure I still had my handbag.

So we're sat down finally, I take a deep breath and O is happily looking out the window. Over the next hour and half the snacks start running out, The magazine has been looked through several times and O is growing restless. I spend 10-20mins asking him to 'please stop licking the window' to which the fellow passengers find hilarious, he then starts trying to get off the seat but the carriage is absolutely rammed so he cant walk up and down. At this stage he is also extremely tired as I thought it would be a spiffing idea not to let him nap in the morning and that doing so would mean that he should definitely nap for the whole journey. So I do the awkward holding them tight and telling him he is tired and needs to go to sleep, OBVIOUSLY he thinks I know nothing and makes it clear by throwing his dummy at me. I'm tired myself, I resort to singing to him (I no longer care is others think I sound like a cat with a cold when I sing) and he calms a little but is still being stubborn, I'm close to giving up and people are getting up to leave for one of the platforms.

Suddenly someone speaks to me, I look up and its a male in his 40s-50s (I think) and all he says is..

'I just want to say you're doing a brilliant job'

I'm shocked and say thank you as he gives me a friendly smile and walks off to leave the train. I sat there in silence, O has given up the battle of no sleep land and I feel my eyes welling up. Those simple words that took him a few seconds to say, THAT IN NO WAY DID HE HAVE TO SAY, those words made my day. Made me realise I AM doing a good job and though I'm not perfect at least one stranger picked up on the fact I was trying my damned hardest.

Now I will probably never see this man again however his kind action has made me think how a few simple words could really help someone or even just a smile and I will be making more effort in future to try and give someone else that boost that he gave me. He will probably never read this but if he is, THANK YOU.