His kids would always ask him, when he told the story of their mother and his wedding day, what would’ve happened if a train came and ran them over. He’d say, “Well I don’t know, all we could do was cross our fingers and pray it wouldn’t happen until after we said, ‘I do’”. The kids would laugh and laugh, but they didn’t get the real meaning behind the joke. They were too young to understand love then.
The real irony was that their mother did get hit by a train, right in this spot. She jumped in front of it three weeks ago. Now she was gone. His life was gone. His love was gone. The kids were grown—he had no one to tell the joke to anymore. They understood love now.
The tracks beneath his feet rumbled, he could hear the train coming. The train that gave him his life, the train that took it back, the train that would soon put more irony into the little joke he whispered to himself the day she died. The joke he whispered to himself the day he died.
Alexander turned his head to the sky and whispered, “I do”
A small, crumpled note flew from his hand in a gust of wind from the large cargo train.

I do.