This morning I found myself in Glasgow Queen Street Station.   I had a meeting with a potential partner organisation for an event, and rather than continue our discussion by email or phone we had agreed that it might be easier to meet.   It meant that we could weigh each other up, and decide whether we could work together, as well as try and grasp each other’s vision of how something might happen.

Travelling this morning worked better than I had expected and I found myself in the station half an hour before I was supposed to be there.   As I got myself a cup of coffee and something to eat (having skipped breakfast in the rush to get the younger house occupants to school and then rush to the station) I found myself realising that the last time I had been in the station had been 27 years ago and probably at much the same time of year.   It would have been my first trip to Glasgow, and probably my first trip on a train in Scotland by myself, it was also to be my first experience of a friend’s funeral.

For much of my senior years of High School, I had been part of an inter school Scripture Union group that met on Saturday nights.   As well as the Scripture Union appointed staff member, there were student volunteers who helped.   One of the volunteers was very into hill climbing, and during one winter climb sadly died as she got caught in sliding snow.

It felt important to go to the funeral, and even though I did not know my way round Glasgow I wanted to go.   One of the members of the group was studying in Glasgow, and made arrangements to meet me at the station and ferry me from church to crematorium.   In snow boots and warm jacket, with an almost school uniform underneath I found myself standing in the station, waiting.

My memory of the funeral itself is sketchy.   I remember it being so busy that we were in the back pew.   I remember the kindness of the young woman’s family as they ensured that this of us she had known through the group were included in being at the crematorium and the funeral tea.   I remember them asking about the kind of things the group did, sharing the enjoyment of young faith developing in discussion and activity.   But there is much about the day I don’t remember, as so much is lost in knowing that a late teenager was wrestling with the knowledge that youth did not mean invincibility.

This morning standing in Queen Street, I could remember the emotion of standing at the meeting place and the vulnerability of feeling small and young in the big space of the station.   But I was also reminded of the shared emotion of the day, as others mourned and celebrated the life of a young woman who had been their daughter or their sister or their friend.

I found it fascinating that a space could trigger such a strong recall response.