| For many photographers a picture isn’t just an image but is often a memory or reminder of something else not captured in the photograph. This photograph, albeit one of my all time favorites, holds a special place in my heart for something other than a train or pretty scene. The idea of this photograph quickly formed in my brain as I arrived in the small mountain town of Dillsboro, NC, only minutes before the GSMR’s Tuckasegee River Excursion Train did. The sun angle quickly dictated a shot from the south of the train, and due to buildings near the tracks casting a shadow on the train, I realized my best option was to catch the locomotive as it crossed this grade crossing. I parked and quickly made my way down the end of peaceful, shady, dead-end residential street that crossed over a small creek. The train slowed and stopped prior to the grade crossing to disembark its passengers, and so I had a several minute wait before the locomotive made it to the crossing. As I was waiting, I noticed an elderly woman leave one of the buildings in downtown Dillsboro and begin walking towards me on the residential street. Her age and health condition clearly made it hard for her to walk and it took quite a while until she made it to my location. Surprise and concern immediately popped in my head and I wondered what a woman of her age and condition was doing walking what for her must have been quite far. “How are you doing, sir?” she politely asked. “I’m great, hope you are.” I replied, fully expecting her to ask me what I was doing in the middle of nondescript residential street in Appalachia with a camera. She responded that she was fine and I asked her if she lived nearby, concerned that perhaps she had no ride and was forced to walk in her condition to get food and other necessities. She said that she lived at the end of the street to the left (behind the photograph) and that she walked into town to get lunch everyday. “I have a vehicle, but my doctor says I’ll die if I don’t keep moving, so I walk a mile everyday.” I replied that it was impressive that she did that in her condition and at her age. She smiled at me and said, “If die, I’m confident I know where I’m going and I know the one who paid the price for me to be there.” She then asked if knew Him, and I explained that I too had faith that Jesus Christ was God and had kept the law and died for my sins also. She smiled and nodded in agreement and then was off down the road, shuffling forward, bent over by advanced age. Now nearly six months since this photograph was taken, I cannot look at this without thinking about her and her faith and endurance. I pray that if I live to be her age, I’ll have even a portion of the faith and endurance that she clearly possessed. |