Review- Waving At Trains

Review – Waving at trains
What a strange and, at the same time, common habit we have that when a train is passing near we wave. It is a custom that seems to be extended amongchildren and adults and people from diverse cultures. “Waving at trains” by Matthew Davey is an intense and poignant story about two brothers and the death of their parents.It is also a story that talks about family traditions and the way in which we face the most difficult moments.
The story shows the life of two teenager siblings and theirrelationship with his father in times where trains were booming in Britain. The narrator, the younger brother, tells how he passes his life in the countryside enjoying the longwalks with his older brother – Ed – and his father, fond of Ornithology. But then, his father becomes sick and so everything change. At the beginning, they are sent to live with anuncle, but then, when his father survives chemotherapy they return home with him. Later on his father contracts cancer again, and so they have to assume new responsibilities.Soon after that, his father dies and so his mother.
Davey tries to make us think about how our lives change when a close person dies and how we try to move on. The first lineof the story is the following: “The day my father died was a huge relief” and that is a thought that crosses the mind of lot of people who see the suffering of their lovedones; these brothers suffer with his father when he was so bad. The long walks and the waving at trains were part of the family tradition which they try to keep even the day whenthey lost their mother too. Through this narrative we can appreciate the value that these young boys give to their traditions in their quest to go ahead in spite of everything.