God's Grace or Angels? (Winter storm short story from this weekend)

[jmoburg]

Going on about 10 years of tradition, my father’s side of the family has combined Thanksgiving and Christmas into a one day celebration so that all families are able to make it to this one event – bc of course so many families split time one year with one side, and another year with another side of the family. This Seasonal family get-together occurs around the 1st week of December, and this year, fell on this past weekend.

I’m a Chicago suburb person myself, who in order to get to the family event needed to drive about 3 hours west. I live close to my sister & brother-in-law who are parents to my 2 year old Godson. With the weather forecasts advising for zero or low travel, we decided to try the Amtrak train this year-- which actually looked quicker on paper-- a 2 hour ride straight to where we needed to go (plus a little requested pickup from the train stop of course). The ride down was great – the family event everything it was suppose to be – Tons of good home family cooking, and plenty of helpings of that holiday weight in the form of starches and sweets (some of those sweets were the only foods the little 2 year old traveling companion Godson would eat). Inside the ham was glazed with brown sugar, outside the town was glazed with a wintery coat, like finished wood project after a carpenter applies polyurethane.

Time to go home. Train was scheduled to leave at 6:56pm, and arrive at our home town at 9:05, roughly 2 hours. Inside the train station, an announcement was made that due to weather, the train was going to be about 15-20 minutes late. Everyone sighed, but it was manageable. When the train arrived, a healthy young man slipped onto his back running to board the train due to the ice that overpowered the sprinkled salt. It was dark outside, but the train was fully lit, and ready for the quick journey. The wired up little Godson was everyone’s favorite passenger on the train, and his only moments of silence were when a young girl would smile at him and his ambitious boyish energies turned into a shy statuesque posture.

We approached the midway stop of the night around 8:15 …right on schedule. It was a unrecognized town by most of the passengers who were on track back to Chicago-- many who think anything a hour west of Chicago is basically Iowa. The engineer came over the sound system letting us know that we were going to be stopped momentarily due to some power lines down over our tracks between our no name town and Chicago.

The passengers began to stir during the wait, as 8:15 turned into 9:15. The little Godson started to loose his favor with the other passengers as his cute smiles were transforming into tired cries and wiggling around – making his parents (my sister and brother-in-law) embarrassed. There was a group of women who sat in front of my Godson and his parents, who had been talking about the hopes of soon becoming Grandparents, and it sounded like they were all recent empty nesters. They had more patience on the train than anyone else, as they were of course once parents and understand how frustrating a little child can be when he can’t sleep. The bright inside lights of the train weren’t helping, and the constance updates over the speaker system kept making him cry… not to mention a little fever his mom detected.

As 9:15 turned into 10:15…and 10:15 into 11:15…and 11:15 into Midnight… The passenger car began to carry frustrated voices. Cell phones were relaying delayed arrivals to loved ones, and the formerly little known town was becoming a household name as we continued to sit at the stop. No word from the power company on how the downed powerline would be solved. I was reading Frosty the Snowman little book for the 8th time as I tried my hand at quieting the little boy down, for his parents sake, and the rest of the passengers, as his cries were turning into screams, and everyone’s patients were running thin, and from thin into none at all.

A blended harmony started out low among the crowd’s grumblings…not of Christmas carols, but as the volume of the melodies increased, the crowd’s anger seemed to dissipate, and it was a lullaby that was heard. The group of women in front of the exhausted parents were smiling, a smile that any Catholic would say resembles the smile that is on the face of most statues of Mary’s in any Catholic church. My chest warmed with relief, as Frost the Snowman, the already proven wrong remedy for sleep, was replaced by the voices that sounded like angels. Suddenly the lights went out in the train, and you’d almost be sure that fear was about to enter… but fear remained outside as doorkeeper was these heavenly voices who continued to sing the same lullaby. (continues on next post)

 

[jmoburg]

(continued from above)
I don’t know what time it was when my little nephew’s foot and arm made the little flinch, which told me he was in a deep sleep. Most of the train’s passengers also had fallen asleep. These all-star mothers, much like our hall of fame mother Mary, had done what no one else could do – provide peace. I being your normal Chicagoan also has a typical eroded set of patience, and even though I’m use to traffic, anything less than efficient can set me off into a cell phone call to someone to solve the problem. I had never picked up my cell phone that night, nor would I have been able to dial the number to reach a group of women who for no cost, would provide the peace we all needed. It was 2:15am…6 hours of delay, and I had never quit smiling. The time I had with my nephew and family, and the unusual amount of patience I had that night began to make me feel warm – that it wasn’t my own patience I had conjured up from within, but instead patience I was given through God’s Grace.

A few buses arrived to pick up the stranded, and drive us to our final destination, the original train stop we originally took off from in the morning. We boarded the bus. The transportation from train to bus of my nephew brought back those tears of tiredness … and the same women who were on the train happened to be on our bus out of the 3 buses that picked us up, and their voices put him to sleep. Most passenger fell asleep during the hour and half bus ride to that final destination called home.

I awoke as the bus swayed back and forth through the turns of town. Suddenly the bus stopped, just a mile or two from home, but in our city. A cop had just pulled us over. It was 4:15am… and the contents of the bus began to grumble. This time, rather than singing, those women chimed in with humming. The cop walked away, and the bus driver was given only a warning for being “an out of towner.” The humming stopped, the grumbling stopped, and at 4:20 we arrived at the home train station.

I tried to grab as much luggage as I could and rushed out the train, many paces in front of my sister and brother in law as I hurried towards the car. I looked back over my shoulder, and forgot to help my sister who was holding her son, off the train. That final step from the train to the ground was a long step…and a step to a frozen slick ground. One of the beautiful sounding women was there to help her off the train. The little boy’s whimpering of being awoken again were calmed by this women giving him a kiss goodbye or goodnight.

As I, my sister, my brother-in-law and nephew all gathered together in the middle of the parking lot, we turned back to thank the group of women. I wanted to hug them, or shake their hands…or something. We only had taken 5 steps away from the bus, and in the near empty parking lot, it wasn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack, but instead, looking for a needle among 5 straws of hay. That group of women were gone. Vanished.

Anyone else care to probably guess what the first thought in my mind was when there was no logical reason for the disappearance of these women?

This morning when I returned the home phone calls of all the family members who asked me to call to let them know I was “ok” … I think they expected to me to give the laundry list of complaints that any frustrated holiday traveler would give. I actually had none.

I doubt anyone else would ever mind waiting in line 6-8 hours to see angels.