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When my husband and I debated the pros and cons of moving here to the countryside of Gibsonville 18 years ago, the fact that we’d be living across the road from railroad tracks never entered the conversation.

We didn’t think about what it would mean — at least not until that first night sleeping here.

After a long evening of moving, we settled into bed. We dozed off quickly, only to be awakened a few hours later by the loud rumbling of a late-night train passing by. Not used to train sounds so close to our bedroom, we felt the train was going to come down the hallway any minute.

In the weeks that followed, we adjusted to the routine and noises of the trains that passed by daily.

People told us the day would come when we would not even notice them anymore. Hannah, 15 months at the time, was afraid of the trains, so that day could not come too soon.

As each train passed, Hannah would start to fuss and cry, running down the hall to find me so I could pick her up until the loud noise was gone. We tried to show her how much fun watching the trains could be, but all she understood was that they were loud. And she did not like loud.

One time, as we heard the telltale warning of a train’s approach, Hannah tore off from her bedroom to the living room to find me. From the vantage point of our bedroom, where my husband and I were doing laundry, we saw a flash of little girl as she passed right by our bedroom.

While we were sympathetic to her fear, the sight made both of us laugh, me a bit more than my husband.

Hannah was none too pleased when she found us laughing, but since I was laughing harder than my husband, she gave up her usual preference of coming to Mommy for comfort and went to Daddy instead. This made me laugh more.

Less than a year later, her baby brother was born.

Christopher did not have the same discomforts as his sister where the trains were concerned.

When Hannah saw that Christopher couldn’t care less about the noise, she adjusted her thinking and began to like the trains. She could not be outdone by her little brother in anything.

As they grew into friends, they could be playing quietly in one of their bedrooms one minute, running down the hall to the living room the next at the first hint a train was coming. They would each grab a corner of the mini-blinds and, whoosh, smash it upward so they could see the train pass. It soon became important to watch out for them flying down the hall as we risked being trampled in the process.

The train became a highlight for their friends’ visits.

One day, the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus train went by our house. Train car after train car passed slowly, and my children and their friends were highly amused.

Many of their friends’ preschool classes would take a field trip to ride Amtrak from Greensboro to Burlington. They would tell us the day so that we could try to be out at the edge of our yard to wave as their train passed.

Years have passed, and we rarely acknowledge the trains’ passing unless they are particularly long or loud. The trains’ rumble instead is more a lullaby as it passes by our house, its blast more soothing than annoying. The train is a part of what has made this house a home, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Linda Vestal is a wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend living in Gibsonville. Contact her with comments or story ideas at lindavestal@triad.rr.com.