I was reminded yesterday, after writing about the Good Samaritans who have stopped to help me, of a call I got back when Benji was still attending IJC. (Was that really 20 years ago?) Anyway, a woman, who also worked for Bellsouth, called to tell me of her experience the night before.

She was on Hwy 25 when her car went dead. Stranded on a dark stretch of highway before the days of cell phones is not something any woman in Mississippi would relish. She had not been there long when a nice young man in a VW Fox passed her, then turned around and came back to help her. It was Benji, and he had noticed the Telephone Pioneer sticker on the back bumper of her car. "That could be my mother," he'd thought, so he did the chivalrous thing and went back to check on her.

"Normally, I would never get in the car with a strange man," she told me, "but this young man was playing Frank Sinatra on his stereo and said his mother works for Bellsouth. I can't tell you how relieved I was and what a truly helpful gentleman he was in my dilemma. As a mother, I always like to know when my children do good things, so I'm just calling to say thank you for raising this particular boy to be so thoughtful. You should feel very proud of him."

And I was. I think it was the first time anyone had described Benji as a gentleman to me, and it obviously made a strong impression on his mother. In all the less-than-stellar times we've had since then, I remind myself of his core goodness and continue to believe he will do the loving thing.

Love, does indeed, cover a multitude of sins.