“Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty, fifty-one. 51 boxcars, daddy. The little girl smiled at her father, so proud to show him that she could count that high.
Her father smiled back at his little girl, seated in the car beside him, at the railway crossing. She was growing up, all right. Barely five, and able to take pride in what she was becoming.
“I wish I could ride on that train, now, daddy.” It was a wish she wished, out loud, every time the two of them saw a train. “ I wish I could go with that train to all the places it visits.”
And, every time her father would say “Some day, little one. Some day.”
Predictably, on the next occasion, she would wish, and he would reply, “Some day, little one. Some day.”
So, it was with some bewilderment, on this occasion, that the little girl waited for the customary response. Then, she fleshed her thought out for her father. “Some day, right, daddy?”
Her father smiled again. “No, little one. Not some day. Right now. Right now you are going on a train. Just close your eyes, and listen to me.”
Being five, the little one never thought to question, or disbelieve. Her eyes closed.
“Hear the train whistle, pint sized?”
Whether it was her imagination, or the recently passed train, in the distance, she heard, and nodded vigourously.
“Good. Good. Now this is a special train, a magic train, so you must keep your eyes shut tightly for the whole trip if you wish to see exciting, and magic things. Ready? Let’s be off.”
The girl could feel the vibration and swaying of the train immediately.
“Now, remember, your eyes must be closed to see. See where we are? She the conductor? See all the dials and buttons up here in the engine car?”
She could. She really could see it all! And with her eyes closed!
The conductor pulled a few levers, pushed a few buttons, tapped a few dials and lights, and the train lurched forward. Ever so slowly, it began to rumble down the track..
“Faster, daddy. I want it to go faster.”
“Be patient, little one. It takes a lot of work to get things going, and there’s a lot of work this engine has to do.”
How well she knew that! Many times she had counted twenty, or thirty, or even forty cars being pulled by one engine, or two. Why, sometimes she even counted fifty or so, and then had to start all over (because she couldn’t find the next numbers after 50), and had got to twenty or forty more. That was, for sure, a lot of work for an engine to do. Still, she was in a hurry.
“Don’t hurry the journey along, my child. The end of the track will get there soon enough. And we have to stop along the way, many times yet. This is a very, very long trip we are on.”
The little girl listened, and believed. The train rolled on, for what seemed like forever. As each wheel clacked and clicked over the rail gaps, she saw new and exciting wonders.
“What is that, daddy?”
“Why, it’s a mother robin teaching her baby to fly.”
And again she would ask, “What is that, daddy?”
“Why, it’s two little creeks holding hands, and growing bigger and stronger together.”
Again, “What is that, daddy?”
“It’s a bull elk, protecting its friends against the wolf.”
The trip lasted, and lasted, and lasted. Perhaps years, perhaps seconds. And still, the little girl asked, and listened, and learned. “What is that, daddy?’
Sometimes her father had to tell her things that were not so pleasant.
“Why, that’s a weasel, stealing eggs.” Or, “Why, that’s a fox, destroying the rabbit’s burrow.” Even harsher truths often had to be told. “That’s a dead deer, killed by a careless man,” or “That’s a lovebird, that died of a broken heart because no one was around for her to love.”
But most often the experiences were joyous, the journey a pleasure. And still, it continued.
The little girl seemed to be not so little, now. Sometimes, dreams came to her, as she scrunched her eyes tightly shut like her father told her to do. Dreams that she was going to school, meeting friends, doing lots of other novel things. She even dreamed she was growing taller, getting bigger, and the world around her was changing. But the train ride continued onward.
One day, her curiosity got the better of her. She had been, it seemed, in that engine room with her father for what seemed like years, and she was growing restless.
“I want to see the rest of the train.”
With that, she looked to the rear.
Her father sighed the sigh of a father with a teenage child. “OK, let’s go, then.”
The first few cars were crammed to the ceiling with what appeared to be nothing but rulers, and measuring sticks, and measuring cups of all sizes and shapes.
“Daddy, why are we hauling these things on the train? They’re useless.” Already, it seemed, she spoke like a teenager.
“They are important, very important,” was all he would say. They moved backward to the next series of cars.
These cars were equally puzzling to the girl. “But Daddy. All that’s in here are dozens, even hundreds of safes, and cash boxes, and money belts. And they’re all empty except for little scraps in each one. What possible value could they have?
“Believe me, those are not scraps. Those are the rarest of possible belongings.” And they moved backward in the train.
The next few cars were crammed full of people. Strangers, for the most part. All milling around. All getting in the way. The young lady was growing frustrated. “Absolutely useless,” she steamed.
“Absolutely essential,” her father corrected.
They had passed through perhaps thirty-five or more cars by now, and the young woman was tiring of the exploration, and of the trip.
“What could the engineer of this train possibly have been thinking! This entire train is a waste of time, and a waste of energy! It’s going no where of importance, and it’s carrying no cargo of any value!”
She only proceeded to the next series of cars at her father’s urging. Each car contained greater and greater junk, in her view. In her father’s opinion, there was greater and greater treasure in each trip to the rear of the train. But the end of the train seemed to be getting further and further away, as the unit magically grew more and more cars. The woman peered out the window of one unit, perhaps fifty cars into the train, and could still see no end in sight. But she was in less of a hurry now. And sometimes, the next car held a familiar surprise. Perhaps a familiar face appeared, or a pleasurable experience would occur to make the trip seem more enjoyable. In fact, as she moved from car to car, she was finding that she would open the cabin door eagerly in anticipation of a new or familiar experience. The train ride was a delight, once again.
Somewhere between the sixtieth and sixty-fifth car, though, she came to a stark realization. Her father was no longer by her side. An incredible sadness overwhelmed her, and for what seemed like months, she could summon no strength, to either move forward, or go back.
At long last, a voice within beckoned her. “Move on,’ it bellowed. “Move on to the rear.”
The old lady picked herself up, and trekked onward. But each car now revealed both new and old to her.
“Why, there’s that ruler – that rule that I learned about in the third car, “ she would say to herself. Or, “Why, that’s the value that was in the twelfth car.” Or even, that’s the scrap of information that I tossed aside in the twentieth car.” Even, “Why, those are the familiar faces who guided me through the twenty-fifth to fortieth cars.”
And, with those realizations, she knew at last. This was her train of life.
The whistle blew, and the conductor cried out “End of the line. Get your things together. We are nearing the end of the line.”
Panic, urgency attacked the old woman. She hastened as quickly as eighty-year-old legs would carry her to the rear of the car. She needed to see the end, before the end found her. She knew that final car carried essential secrets, and life’s treasures. And, at the end of the train, she would be farthest from it’s beginning, which meant that she would see the end of the journey at the last possible moment.
But the end was a disappointment, for it contained nothing new. Dejectedly, the octogenarian made her way forward, to face the inevitable, to be back at the front of her train when its journey ended. She was prepared.
But as she proceeded from car to car, a new surprise awaited her. For, each car was even more full than it had been when she previously visited. New memories, new treasures, new values, new friends, and new scraps.
“No wonder this train of life is slowing down,” she thought to herself as she opened the door to the engine car. “It’s carrying so much of a load.”
A long familiar voice answered, as if reading her thoughts.
“No, little one, you are wrong. For it’s the load that we carry that fuels our life. With no cargo to carry, this train would not need any cars. Without any cars, it would not need to make the trip. Without the trip, you might as well have never boarded this train of life. And it is this cargo that you, and those that will remember you, will carry for an eternity. It is a cargo of love, and life, and experience.”
With that, the little girl rushed into her aged father’s arms, as the train rumbled onward toward the end of the journey.
Train of Life Manifest
May your train of life experience a cargo of riches in its many scores of cars
