If you’re losing hope in humans, try taking my parents on a road trip. Both in their nineties, they don’t travel often. So you’d have to find a good reason to entice them to pack their bags.
Last weekend held the best of reasons—the Benders were gathering. When my Grandpa Bender married my grandma, he wanted twelve children. He didn’t get his wish. My mother was one of only eleven. But he might have been satisfied to know the most recent tally of his family: 11 children, 55 grandchildren, 165 great-grandchildren, 274 great-great grandchildren, and 34 great-great-great grandchildren, for a total of 539 offspring.
Of all these people, my mother, at age 94, is the oldest living descendant. And last weekend, she was determined to fill her matriarchal role by showing up at the reunion.
So we packed pills and pillows and warm wraps and a cane and headed east, toward the mountains of Western Maryland.
Benders enjoy telling a good story and laughing and eating. Most of all, they take joy, deep joy, in people. They watch babies’ faces and chuckle over toddlers’ antics and applaud as teenagers try their wings. And to grow old among the Benders is to receive deference and honor. So I knew my parents were making their way toward kindness.
What I didn’t expect, though, was so much kindness along the way.
To keep blood flowing and joints limber, we stopped every hour. And at each rest break, kindness practically sprang forth.
People stopped their cars to let us cross parking lots, leapt to open doors, and waited patiently as we blocked their car doors in order to help our parents hoist themselves back into the van. Once at McDonalds, the restroom was crammed with high school girls talking over each other, scrolling on phones, and comparing shades of lipstick.
My mom stood in the doorway, taking it all in, wandering how she’d ever make it through the crowd.
One girl recapped her lipstick.
“Good morning, ma’am,” she said.
And the Red Sea seemed to part. Girls practically fell over each other as they stepped back to give my mom passage to the front of the line. A smile was on every face, including my mom’s.
“Tell me where you’re all going,” my mom said on her way out.
So they stood there talking, my mom with her wrinkles and these freshly made-up girls, who had paused their scrolling.
It was almost like we were already with the Benders.
Apple to Apple 