Deborah Halverson's Blog

I’ll never forget the last time I took a train northward from San Diego. I was bound for Los Angeles, the closest Madonna would come to San Diego on her Re-Invention Tour. This aging Madonna Wannabe wasn’t about to miss the show. Amtrak, however, was far less dedicated to my cause; it got me to my L.A. hotel several hours late. It was the kind of late I could never complain about, though: Just a few miles into the trip, my train struck and killed a pedestrian.

I’ve since learned that Americans die under trains a sobering five hundred times a year. My engineer alone had been involved in twelve such tragedies in his train-driving career. I talked with him as the police investigated the scene and an ambulance waited uselessly, its lights off, its siren quiet. The engineer told me that some of these train “incidents” are accidents, some are suicides. A shocking number happen because people play chicken or just plain get impatient. “It’s a rotten part of the job,” he said flatly. Given the circumstances, I could hardly whine that I was now running late for a rock concert and a meet-up with my mother, who would be giving me a shot in the tuckus that night as part of my lengthy fertility process. I had the needles stored in my suitcase. The irony of the loss on the tracks below and the promise in my luggage overhead wasn’t lost on me.

So now, just over five years later, when my Mom and I boarded another northbound train from San Diego with my almost-five-year-old triplets plus my dad, my feelings were a bit mixed about our grand “Train Trip to Oceanside” day adventure. I was very excited to be on a train again with my sons—we rode so many last year in Europe but haven’t been on a single train since returning to the U.S. last August—but I kept remembering that sad experience on the day of the Madonna concert. This time I wasn’t trying to conceive my children; I had them with me, and I have to say that it was kind of weird on the psyche.

Luckily, when my energetic trio is around, there’s little time for such musings. Soon enough, I was immersed in my sons’ experience. The boys kept up a constant chatter during the ride up to Oceanside (a place I’d never been despite a lifetime living in San Diego, just a few miles south), and except for a few toy bickerings, they were happy as clams to be sitting on a train again, this time with Grandma M. and Grandpa… and their own boxes of Teddy Grahams. I swear, my sons look at my parents and see Teddy Grahams. If my folks ever showed up without them, I’m sure there’d be some kind of revolt.

When we reached Oceanside, my parents got a glimpse at how the Halversons found adventure in Europe. We’d get on a train or bus, ride to wherever, then get off and roam, looking for something interesting. We almost always found it, and this day was no different: Within a few blocks and with just one debate over which way to turn—beachward or downtown—we spotted a huge jungle gym right on the sand. Surprise! We had no idea there’d be one when we decided to venture to Oceanside. The boys were ecstatic. A day with a train, tractor tracks in the sand, and a jungle gym. That’s seriously good stuff when you are an almost-five-year-old boy. Throw in two grandparents and some rolled tacos at Johnny Mananas, and the adventure is complete. (That’s my mom on the jungle gym with my son. Clearly, the tendency to seize adventure runs in the family.)

When we pulled into our driveway several hours later, exhausted but wholly satisfied, my mind went once again to that day on the Madonna express. I never found out whether that “incident” had been an accident or something premeditated. I suppose it doesn’t matter. Someone lost his or her life that day, even as I worked so hard to bring a new life into this world. In the end, I got to be a part of three new people coming into being.  My three sons, adventurers who grab life with both hands—and who take me along for the ride. I am one seriously lucky woman.

And what’s better, I know it.