For years, in the middle of the night, I have heard the shrill groan of train whistles and caught my breath.
I don’t believe in ghosts. Yet, I am haunted.
When I was no more than ten-years-old, my brother told me a chilling tale about train whistles that I have not forgotten.
It was probably a Sunday afternoon, likely autumn, in those yawning middle hours between church in the morning and church at night. My family attended church three times a week in those days—Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. If there wasn’t a Western playing on our television, then my father snoozed or mowed and my mother read or crocheted. Sunday afternoons lazed with a boredom so thick you could taste it. I remember the day as overcast and rainy, all the more reason that Matt and I were upstairs in his room, arguing the day away.
Matt was four years older than me in school, five years older in age. He had above average intelligence, and he loved to use it—on his little sister.
He was always trying to convince me of the craziest things. He had told me once that scientists had developed a third sex, that the US had devised a method for putting trash on the moon, that there was evidence of alien fossils in Utah, that he was an demon, and the list goes on. Usually, he threw out some wild theory, and I tried to catch him in a logical fallacy.
I have never thought of myself as particularly bright, but with an older brother like Matt, you had to develop some wits and learn how to verbally defend your skepticism. If nothing else, I understood quickly that “that’s not true/yes, it is” was not productive and would never lead to a “win.”
But, of all of the things he told me, there is one I cannot forget.
He sat on the edge of his bed, while I slouched in one of the orange plastic chairs our grandparents gave us.
“Do you know what it means when you hear a train whistle?” His voice was serious, his grey-blue eyes wide. His pale cheeks seemed paler against his black, black hair.
I smirked. I was on guard.
“What?” I sighed.
He shifted his stare right, then left.
“It means a ghost is near,” he whispered.
I tried to laugh.
“That’s not true.”
He sat grave and quiet, letting a train scream into the distance.
Our parents probably weren’t home. I would swear to it now. If they were, I would’ve raced downstairs seeking verification. As it was, I was left to absorb this haunting piece of information alone.
I never gave it much thought for years—until Matt’s depression and disease overwhelmed him and he ended his own life nine years later.
Living near train tracks has been my lot in life, a symptom of the Midwest. As children, we used to place pennies on the tracks, only to collect their smooth, flattened copper after the train had rattled by. We would teeter along the tracks with a certain thrill and danger. What if an ankle overturned and our foot became wedged? The local Diary Queen faced a train crossing, and my family would eat our cones in the parking lot, mesmerized by the graffiti on the rusted coal cars. The appearance of the caboose seemed to bring a special delight.
When I lived in Iowa, the first time, my apartment nearly sat on a set of tracks. Trains would thunder by, making pictures rattle against walls, and my own bones vibrate from the force.
These days, whenever I hear a train whistle, I think of Matt and that Sunday afternoon so many years ago. His voice whispers the words, and for a split second, he lives and walks.
Sometimes, I wonder if he told me that because he knew what he planned to do someday, that telling me about the train whistles would somehow ensure that I would always remember him whenever I heard them. Knowing him, I wouldn’t doubt it.
And now, I write this, a memorial, and anyone who happens to read it may be haunted by his words, too—his ghost lingering in the hall of mirrors that is storytelling. His story becomes my story which is a story someone else might someday tell. All of us holding our collective breaths until the trains pass.
This is why I want to tell you more secrets, the secrets of ghosts. Whenever you see grass blades quiver in a summer breeze, I am there. A songbird’s morning call beckons my memory. Whenever you drenched your toes in morning dew, think of my tears. I whisper into wind chimes. I am in each ray of sun. Remember me whenever you hear the soft thump of your own heart.
Do you hear the moan of a passing train?
We can live forever in the echo of its wail.
