Finally, the train arrived. I stepped on board with my huge backpack on my back, my purse slung over my shoulder and lugging my carry-on suitcase all the way up the narrow metal stairs to the coach seating. When I looked around, all the pairs of seats seemed to have one person seated already so I would have to sit next to someone.
I scanned the area. There were a few older men – naw. There was a Mennonite woman – I thought about it for a moment, but thought better of it when I saw how sprawled out she seemed to be. Right across the aisle from here was an older lady with curled white hair. She wore a blue and green shirt with blue jewels along the collar, had a dainty silver necklace on, and wore some pretty beaded bracelets.
“May I sit here?” I asked.
“I think the other lady moved to a different seat, so I think you can sit here.” She replied.
I took that as a yes, smiled at her, and awkwardly lifted my suitcase to the overhead rack. I placed my backpack near where my feet would be, took my purse off my shoulders and sat down.
I sat in peace for a while, taking in the view since I had never ridden the Amtrak before. But soon, the lady began talking to me again.
“The other lady just got up and sat over there.” She pointed to a seat across the aisle and diagonally in front of us. I couldn’t see anything but the top of the other woman’s hair. “She must not have wanted to sit here. She didn’t seem real talkative, so maybe she wanted to be alone. But now she’ll have someone sitting next to her anyways.”
I smiled at her and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”
This woman seemed to be open to chatting. I wondered if we would continue talking, or if that was it. I paused for a while, still looking around the train, and then I decided to just go for it,
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“My name is Bonnie.” She replied.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Kayla.”
“Kayla?” she asked. I affirmed her question as we shook hands.
There was only a brief pause then before she started telling me her story.
Though Bonnie lives in Lacrosse, Wisconsin now, she has not always lived there. She grew up in Danville, IL, and lived there most of her life, even into her marriage. It wasn’t until her husband wanted to get into the mobile home business that they decided to move to Wisconsin. Many of her friends and family members still lived in surrounding areas in IL. Her niece lives in Champaign, IL.
On this particular day, however, Bonnie was headed to Bensonville, IL, to meet up with her friend, Jeanie. Jeanie was not her real name – her real name was one of those old names like Norma Jean or Mary Jean. But ever since they became friends, everyone had known that Bonnie calls her Jeanie.
Bonnie and Jeanie grew up together and had always been best friends. Bonnie grew up Christian, but Jeanie was Catholic. Bonnie told me how all their friends had tried to persuade Jeanie to stop being Catholic, but it didn’t work. One of their guy friends even said,
“Bonnie, we’ve got to get Jeanie out of this Catholic stuff.”
Jeanie joined the convent after 8th grade. She never looked back, despite her best friends’ objections. She became a nun and continued being a nun for decades afterward. Bonnie recounted the day that Jeanie “married the Catholic church” with mixed emotions. She told of how the Catholic Church used to have the sisters dress in wedding dresses and make vows to be married to the Catholic church.
“I cried so much that day,” Bonnie told me, before explaining that the Catholic Church had changed a lot and that they thankfully don’t do that anymore. Bonnie also told me,
“I never called Jeanie ‘sister this’ or ‘sister that’, to me, she was always just Jeanie. I’ve visited her enough that most of the other nuns know me, and they all know that I just call her Jeanie.”
Bonnie shared what a great friend Jeanie had been to her throughout the years. She said that Jeanie was so kind and loving, but her favorite part was Jeanie’s sense of humor. Bonnie chuckled,
“Jeanie is one of the funniest people I know. When we’re together she just makes me laugh and laugh!”
Jeanie’s brother, Mark, is a good friend of Bonnie’s as well since they all grew up together. So throughout their adult years, Jeanie and Bonnie and Mark had gotten together often. Today, Bonnie was on the way to Jeanie’s Jubilee, which would celebrate 50 years of her being a nun. Bonnie explained that Jeanie was not in the best of health, and really needed a hip replacement since her hip was just bone on bone, but Jeanie told her,
“I told the doctors would not schedule the surgery until after my Jubilee. There is no way I’m hobbling around during my Jubilee. It will have to wait until after.”
Thankfully, Jeanie’s health had been relatively good in the weeks leading up to the celebration, and she was very excited to see Bonnie.
Bonnie, grew up Christian. She said that she had been a part of several congregations, but now she went to the Church of God church in Lacrosse. She said that their old pastor had just retired after 35 years of ministry with the church, having given a couple month’s warning before he stepped down. In that time, they had been able to find a new pastor. This pastor was in his mid-thirties and was very energetic – a go-getter, which Bonnie thought would be good for the church.
She commented on how much church culture has changed since she was younger. The older generation wanted to sing older music and the younger generation wanted younger music. She didn’t say it as if it was good or bad, but just as if that’s the way things were and pastors had to find a balance. She also mentioned how casual people dressed for church nowadays. When she was younger, everyone dressed up for church.
“Even if we didn’t have much, we always had Sunday dresses,” she said.
Now people just come in whatever they’re wearing. She seemed slightly uncomfortable by this concept, but she also mentioned that it was honest because everyone just came as they were and God accepts us as we are.
Bonnie grew up in Danville, IL, and had a thriving childhood and early teen years. In her early adult years, she and her group of friends hung out a lot. Bonnie laughed as she remembered all the shenanigans they had together. They would go to the local diner often, or they would drive around town. The guys always did stupid stuff, but Bonnie said,
“No one ever drank or smoked, but we always had good clean fun.”
Her eyes glistened with joy as the memories seemed to flash through her head. The guys were always pulling pranks on each other. She mentioned one guy who had fancy hubcaps on his wheels. Another friend stole his hubcaps one day, and this guy was furious. He was steaming mad, but everyone thought it was hilarious. Still, to this day, he owns those hubcaps.
Bonnie met her husband on one of these outings. She told me,
“I always needed someone to walk me home…and he really seemed to like that job. We got to know each other and dated for a few years. He joined the forces, and we got married during his first leave.”
I marveled at her wedding ring. It was very art-deco styled, but the diamonds still glistened in the light. Bonnie’s husband, Gerome, had died many years earlier.
Gerome always told Bonnie they would have to “send for some children,” so they did eventually adopt two children. When they first sent for a child, they received him in their arms only six weeks later. Bonnie was not prepared – she only had a few pieces of clothing and a crib. She had to go shopping for everything else. Their son’s name was Paul. Two years later, they sent for another child. This time, it took two more years to get their child. Their daughter’s name is Gloria. Paul and Gloria are four years apart.
This was different than Bonnie’s upbringing. Bonnie was the eldest of five children. She and her brother right under her were close. Then there was another girl under them, and then twin boys. The twins were named Paul and Ernie.
Paul and Ernie were four years younger than Bonnie, but she was close with them and cared for them often when they were young. She said that she could never imagine the twins being apart. They were always together, dressed the same, and even had the same mannerisms. She pulled out an old black and white picture of them as young men. They were wearing roller skates and matching white button-up shirts with nice slacks. They each had their arm placed in the same position against their hips.
When they got older, the twins lived in the same nursing home facility. After telling me that one of the twins died of cancer, Bonnie said, “I never thought one could live without the other, they were so close. But he lived another two years after his twin died!”
Bonnie had always been known as a mother figure in the community. Many of the stories she told me had to do with people who were of no relation to her, but whom she considered another one of her children. This was why it was so funny when they brought their daughter Gloria home. Everyone thought she was just another baby that Bonnie was taking care of. No one believed Bonnie when she said that this baby was actually hers!
Bonnie was like a second mother to several children, one of which was her friend’s son named Ryan. Bonnie said that the most fun trip she ever went on was to California when Ryan graduated from college. When I told Bonnie about the wedding I was going to, she said that she would be experiencing an interesting wedding soon. When Ryan was an adult, he came out as a gay man. Bonnie said that no one had expected it, and though she didn’t agree with it because of her faith, she still loved him. When he came out, her friend came to her, asking her advice about what to do, she told her,
“You just love him like your son. That doesn’t change.”
When Ryan sent out wedding invitations, he called up Bonnie and told her that if it made her uncomfortable, he would understand and it would be okay if she didn’t come. Bonnie expressed the tension of disagreeing with his lifestyle while still loving him like her own son. She still didn’t know if she was going to go to the wedding or not. She thought it would mean a lot to her friend if she was there to support the family, but she also felt uncomfortable with it.
I was amazed by Bonnie’s candor and honesty about it. I had only ever heard people of her generation speak about the topic with disdain or judgment, but Bonnie seemed to truly be wrestling with the tension in a way that I respected. She did not hold back from stating her position on the issue itself, while still expressing a deep love and care for her honorary son that she had seen grow up into a wonderful young man. Their relationship sounded very special.
Gloria, Bonnie’s daughter, had had a hard life. She had been married twice. The second marriage ended when her husband was killed. Gloria has a daughter named Raegan.
Raegan is only ten, but she has had to face a lot of tragedy in those short years. Within only a couple of weeks, she faced several deaths. A couple of uncles owned a jewelry store, which got robbed, and both men were shot and killed. A few days later Raegan’s dad was killed. And a week later a family friend died.
When Raegan’s dad died, her mom was never the same. She tried to keep going for her daughter, but Bonnie said the life had been sucked out of Gloria’s eyes. Most days she was depressed and apathetic. She has given up. So Raegan spends a lot of time with her grandmother, Bonnie. She lives with Bonnie over the weekends and goes to church with her.
Gloria doesn’t go to church, but Bonnie has really invested in her granddaughter’s spiritual formation by bringing her to church every week and Vacation Bible school in the summers. Just a few weeks ago, Raegan was baptized. She has been wanting to get baptized for several years, but Bonnie was hesitant since she was so young. She finally let her get baptized, however, when she saw that her granddaughter’s passion for it wasn’t fading and her enthusiasm was sustained.
Bonnie loves children and often volunteers at a nearby school. She helps in the classroom and is another grandmother figure in many young children’s lives. Her love and care for these children is evident even in the way she talks about them. Bonnie described one little girl who is slightly autistic. She told me how this girl struggles to focus and had a hard time learning to read at first.
“Now she can read books to me all on her own!” Bonnie told me with a smile.
This showed me not only the girl’s determination, but Bonnie’s perseverance and patience to work with this little girl day by day.
As my conversation with Bonnie ended, that day, I was inspired by her life. She had only been a stranger a few hours before, but through her stories of others and of her own experiences, Bonnie had shown me what it looks like to spend a lifetime loving others. She had invested years into her children, her honorary children, her friends, her marriage, and the children in her community, without expecting anything in return. She loved others wholeheartedly, and even now in her mid-eighties was still traveling across state lines to join in her friend’s celebration.
What might my life look like if I choose to love like this? What stories will I share with the stranger next to me on the train in eighty years?
*The opinions expressed by Bonnie in this piece do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its author or this website.*
