I’ve cried a lot in my life. I cried when I killed my hermit crab. I cried when my brother started smoking cigarettes. And I cried when my grandmother died. So it may seem strange that I didn’t cry when my parents drove off and left me on the side of the road at a scenic overlook in Utah.  Although I now take joy in embarrassing them with each retelling, what I actually felt at the time was confidence that they would return and reinforce the truth that my family always came back for me.

In the summer of 2008 we took a trip to the Grand Canyon, a place my sarcastic brother dubbed “a big pile of rocks.” We packed the car and drove from our small hamlet on Long Island to the Wasatch Range Mountains of Utah. By the twentieth hour of driving, the hunger for the stillness of a hotel was great; five genetically tied minds held inside a single Honda Odyssey mini-van was a dangerous situation for a multitude of reasons. The energy in the car was palpable. For me, any type of transportation induces sleep. But not on this trip.  I was going through my whittling stage, as most children do. The question of what could and could not be shaped by the sharp piece of flint I had purchased on a school field trip earlier that month rented most of my brain. A challenge was urgent, as I had mastered small sticks the previous week at recess. We passed a sign that read, Scenic Overlook. Knowing this was a trigger for my hippy-dippy mother, I anticipated my father would pull over.  And he did.

The trip to the hotel had been so arduous that this stop was necessary to expunge the angst of my unrelenting brothers and the weariness of my parents. I had a different agenda, the need for a soft rock malleable enough to carve into an arrowhead. I was also going through my “no reason to wear shoes because I had my tetanus shot” phase.

So we all got out of the car and meandered to the edge of the cliff. I was in pain because of the rubble stabbing my feet, but I would never have admitted it. Whoosh! The door to the minivan shut, like a muscle contraction. I turned. The car had advanced 200 feet and was picking up speed even as I screamed. I shrugged and walked to a bench.  They’ll notice I’m gone pretty quickly.        I sat, swimming in self-deprecation because I had forgotten my piece of flint. Now my vulnerability could not be masked with a whittling task. I perched on the bench for what seemed like an hour.  It started to rain. I was nine, wearing no shoes, plastered in motley tie-die saturated by Juniper rain.

Then, a black SUV pulled up and a dark tinted window rolled down. A man in his mid-40s stuck his neck out the window.  “Darling are you alright? Where are your parents?” he asked. 

“Oh, they left me, but they’re coming back.”

“Would you like to sit in our car until they come back? We have candy.”

Of course, if a safety code was instilled in you as a child, you would know that when you have the opportunity to go into a stranger’s SUV, you should take advantage of it. Especially when they have candy.  I opened the car door and stepped up almost half of my height into the black leather interior.

Four sunny faces beamed at me while I clambered onto the pristine rubber floor mats. The car consisted of a couple that looked as if they had just finished shooting a spread for Martha Stewart, and an elderly couple who were a walking advertisement for a Floridian nursing home; they said they were from Texas, and that they spent a lot of time at their Mormon church. The elderly woman, wearing a Kim Jong-un powder blue pantsuit, asked if I wanted a peppermint stick. Being an avid user of mint, I took her up on the offer. However, I immediately regretted it, as it was not the normal formulation of peppermint, like that of a candy cane. Alternatively, it tasted as if it belonged at the bottom of an old person’s candy jar, along with a loose key, unwrapped cough drop and paperclip. The older man asked if he should call my parents and although I knew they wouldn’t answer, I said yes. He proceeded to lift his Motorola Dynatac 8000x and extended the antenna. I was in awe of its primitiveness (The first generation iPhones had recently been released). He dialed the 10 digit number I gave him, but no one answered, cell technology at the Grand Canyon being no more advanced than his phone.

We talked for three hours despite the weak bond bridging us; I said I was from Long Island and they told me their 22 year-old daughter was on a trip in New York City. By dank twilight, a seed of a red Honda Odyssey appeared at the bend in the road. It was apparent that the speed of the mini-van was over the limit by a chasm. My parents pulled aside the tank of a car and my father’s door opened faster than it was closed when they left me; my father ran to the SUV and my mother completed the final stage of her emotional breakdown in the passenger’s seat. They hung on the window of the SUV, eternally thanking the four sunny faces. We then got into the minivan and I said,  “They were really nice. I should have gotten their email.”
       

Unfortunately, I was not a sophisticated nine year old, so the only conclusions I drew from this experience were that not all people in SUVs existed to lure children into fateful situations, and that I did not like to see my mother cry.     It wasn’t until the Thanksgiving 2010, when I was eleven, made real sense of this experience. The tale of abandonment had become my signature tale, the best story to cut through the canopy of sound that was my massive extended family. So I was asked again to recount the infamous tale. After finishing the story and getting the usual comments…. your mother left you at the side of the road!..... this is such a family story!..... did you really not cry?....  I got a new response.       

My radically liberal and arrogant uncle, who tried to appear indifferent to familial conversation, twisted his neck and said, “I think the worst part of the whole story is that they were probably Texan conservatives! They could have brainwashed her!”

Of course this was a joke, but it came from some place of authenticity. At the age of 11 I didn’t really know what a conservative was, I did draw one conclusion; whatever a conservative was, my uncle did not like them.  His comment angered me. Why shouldn’t he like them? They took time to ensure my safety. They were good people.
So now as a 17 year old, and still not so sophisticated, I continue to analyze the value of these labels we give each other.  What is a conservative? Yes, I understand what that that means politically and socially, but what does gaining such a title by the valor of others mean? Is it bad to be one? Is it a conservative’s fault for being a conservative? Are “conservatives” terrible people because they fall susceptible to tribal identification, superficial assessments, and pride, as do liberals? I didn’t think so when I was eleven and I don’t think so now. I came to the understanding that the factors which influence a person to political affiliations or ethical judgments doesn’t make them the enemy, it just makes them a human.

This event didn’t just serve as a bizarre notch in the belt of family oblivion, but an example of an important guiding principle; humans are inherently good. As exhibited with the Grangerford and Shepherdson families in Huck Finn or the Montague and Capulet houses in Romeo and Juliet, we dedicate a portion of our existence to destroying others out of an illuminating yet deceptive hate. It is easy to project our pain onto people whose opinions differ from our own.  And yes, when human rights are infringed, action must follow to contest destructive notions. 

However, people are not actually evil. Although it is possible for the human identity to be distorted, our condition is built to assume virtue. This principle that I drew from this seemingly silly occurrence catalyzed a throng of moral attitudes. I realized we are slaves to our biology, built to abide the equilibrium of giving and receiving love because we have a better chance of survival as a collective unit; to quote a certain English Rock band, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” This balance relies on empathy, which healthy conditions all include, like those four faces on that day in Utah. Human capability is appalling, but the case that spurs those capabilities is tragic. Although we punish people for committing heinous crimes in order to condemn malicious behavior, criminals are not evil. They’re sick. People deemed “bad” are burdened by mental illness and warped by hostile environments. Humans aspire to virtue, and if we take some of our time to understand others, we work towards a ubiquitous harmony and minimize our individual frustration.

That is my naive high school opinion which I may contradict as I grow into cynical adulthood.  However, I know that the core attitude I gained from this experience will remain as long as I live; understanding the human condition aids in maintaining one of the most important factors in our lives, our relationships. Our well-being doesn’t exclusively rely on domestic links to friends and family, but also to the universal sphere, granting respect to those who are alien to us. Now when I disagree with someone on a political or ethical front, I try not to tap into those counterfeit deposits of glittering animosity. Instead, I attempt to understand the person’s station. Maybe we should ask each other for our emails more often.