The Stranger on Platform Nine

I wasn’t planning to cry on Platform Nine that morning. But life doesn’t exactly book appointments with your emotions.

I was running late, clutching a coffee that had gone lukewarm and a phone that had just died. The Monday morning crowd surged around me—commuters with straight spines and glazed eyes, their headphones forming invisible walls. I stood still, overwhelmed and motionless, trying to remember why I even bothered.

Two months earlier, I’d lost my mother.

Not to a dramatic accident or a long, cinematic illness. Just time. One moment she was here, folding laundry and scolding me for not eating enough greens, and the next, she wasn’t. They say grief comes in waves. But for me, it felt more like fog—thick, silent, always there, even when you pretend it isn’t.

That morning, everything collapsed. A delayed train, a cold coffee, a tired heart. I blinked fast to stop the tears, but they didn’t care about public places.

That’s when I heard the voice.

“You okay?”

I turned, startled. A man—early 40s maybe, scruffy beard, a faded blue hoodie, a backpack slung over one shoulder—was standing just a few steps away. He didn’t look nosy or performatively concerned. His voice was calm, his expression open. He wasn’t trying to fix anything. He just asked.

I wanted to say “I’m fine.” That’s what we always say, isn’t it? But instead, I surprised myself.

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

His eyes softened. “Wanna sit for a minute?”

We found a bench near a large window where sunlight filtered through like it was trying to heal something. I didn’t know this man. I didn’t even know his name. But I sat.

“I lost my mum,” I said, without being asked.

He nodded, not saying anything at first. “Four years ago,” he said finally. “Mine too.”

I blinked, stunned by the timing, by the coincidence, or maybe by the universe placing strangers beside each other like puzzle pieces. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of mints.

“She used to carry these,” he said, offering one to me. “She hated gum. Said it made people look like cows chewing cud.”

I actually laughed—a short, choked laugh that sounded like it had been trapped inside me for weeks.

“Mine hated reality shows,” I said, taking a mint. “She called them ‘plastic drama.’ She used to say if she wanted to watch people yell, she’d just visit her sister.”

He smiled. “They really knew how to leave us with lines, didn’t they?”

We talked like old friends. He told me how his mother once bought him two left shoes because she was distracted and wouldn’t admit it was her fault. I told him how mine used to write love notes and leave them in my coat pockets. I once found one six months after she’d passed. Just a tiny folded paper: “You are more than the bad days.”

We didn’t speak about jobs, politics, weather. Just our mothers. And for once, that was more than enough.

“Do you talk about her often?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said. “But I think about her all the time. It’s like… she’s a song that plays quietly in the background of every day.”

That line stayed with me.

Eventually, the announcement echoed through the station. His train to Edinburgh.

We stood up. I expected some awkward goodbye, maybe a handshake. But he simply pressed the mint packet into my hand.

“Keep it,” he said. “Pocket-sized memory.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s your name?”

He paused. “Tom.”

“I'm Laila.”

“Nice to meet you, Laila,” he said, smiling. “You’ll be okay. Not every day. But enough days.”

Then he was gone.

It’s been a year.

I still carry the mint packet. Not for the mints—they’re long gone—but for what they meant in that moment. That grief is not something to outrun. It’s something to walk with. And sometimes, healing doesn’t come from long conversations or self-help books. Sometimes, it arrives in the form of a stranger with a kind smile and a shared story.

I never saw Tom again. I don’t know if he meant to help me or if he was just passing through his own fog, reaching out blindly in hopes someone would take his hand.

But that day changed something.

Now, when I see someone on a bench with red eyes or a distant stare, I don’t walk by. I sit. I ask. I listen.

Not because I have answers—but because someone once did the same for me.

And sometimes, the briefest of connections leave the longest shadows.