Whispers From the Train

I can hear the train at night. When all is still and I'm lying in my bed, just before I drift off, I hear it. And each time, it paints a picture in my head of my Grandma.

Her name was Mary Jo Murphy. She was born in 1919 and she was short and round. An Irish Catholic with black hair. Her fingernails were long and red and the nails on her forefingers curled under when they got too long, just like mine do. She liked to read and kept RC Cola in the house and made oyster stuffing for the holidays. She had a happy, happy smile, outlined in red, red lipstick. She collected angels and played Euchre and went to Mass every week. She raised ten children, including two sets of twins back-to-back, during the era before disposable diapers, TV, and evolved husbands. Behind her house on Kossuth Street, literally in her backyard, ran the railroad tracks. All night long, everyone in the house could hear the rumble of each train and feel the house tremble in it's passing, the windows rattling us awake. It bothered some of my cousins when we chanced to spend the night, but I loved hearing the whistle as it rolled through town and the chugga-chugga disappear into infinity.

She died in July of 1988. I was pregnant with Dillon and just starting to show. She had hoped it was twins and had faith that even at 21 I could handle it. She never saw my marriage fail, or my Purdue graduation; my children born or my new life with Chris. But I know that she knows. She tells me at night when everyone is asleep and it's just she and I. I doubt that my neighbors even notice the sounds, and to those who do, it's just a train headed to parts unknown. But to me, it's my Grandma reminding me that she's still here watching over me and she still loves me.