I went home to Colorado this past weekend to see the Denver Broncos hand the Kansas City Chiefs their first loss of the season. While I was home I went to see my mom. She had quite the story to tell meThis past summer my mom's younger sister died of brain and lung cancer. My mom has been devastated by this loss. I took my mom to church and then we sat outside looking at the Rocky Mountains and my mom cried. She finally talked about all of her grief. She also told me about her train ride to Chicago (my mom doesn't fly) for the funeral. She was very anxious to travel. She said there was only one other woman in her passenger car. My mom introduced herself to this woman and all the lady said was, "Monica." My mom decided later to go have dinner in the dinning car and Monica was going at the same time so she walked in front of my mom and held all 9 doors to get down the train (my mom has arthritis in her hands and has trouble opening things).

In the dinning car they got seated with a couple from Canada. Monica never talked during dinner. My mom said the Canadians never seemed to noticed. Later that night my mom woke up at midnight and decided to sit up in the viewing car that is all skylights. She finally let herself cry over the loss of her baby sister. The entire train was quite because it was the middle of the night and then suddenly Monica showed up. She asked if my mom wanted to talk. My mom said, she just wanted to sit and watch out the window. Then Monica said, "All the answers you are looking for are within you." Then the two just sat until the sun started to come up. When my mom went back to her seat Monica was not there but she thought nothing of it and concentrated on getting her things together because they were approaching Chicago.

When my mom was getting off the train she asked the man who helped her down when the other lady in the car got off. The man said, "there was no one else in your car with you." My mom told him about the woman and the man repeated that there was no one the entire time she was on the train. My brother came up at that point and collected my mom and off to the funeral they went. Later at the memorial service my cousin asked my mom if she realized what the day was that my aunt died. "No," replied my mom. My cousin then said,  "It was the Feast of Saint Monica." My mom knew immediately who the woman on the train was...she was the patron saint of mothers and married women. I cried as my mom shared this story with me. It felt good to know that my mom was not alone on that train as she traveled to say goodbye to her sister.

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