On kindness

Last night I was on the phone with my mom, and she told me a funny story about my nieces, who are both terrified of bugs of all kinds except roly polies. They love roly polies, otherwise known as pill bugs or potato bugs. All kids do, really. Since I don't know if these exist everywhere or only in dry climates, here is a picture:

Anyway, it has been storming around our parts, but the sun came out for a bit yesterday while the girls were outside playing. As anyone who lives in a place that has all four seasons knows, after a heavy rain, worms and nightcrawlers swarm to the concrete. When the rain stops they all go back underground.

Well, some of them do. Again, I don't know how this works in other areas but in this part of the country, after a heavy rain the sidewalks and streets are littered with fried worms. They can't get back to the soil before they dry out and die.

So the girls were outside playing, and there was a worm in their driveway that they decided to save. It was making its way back to the grass, but there wasn't enough time! When they picked it up my mom told them to throw it in the garden.

"All by itself?" They shrieked. "Where is the rest of his family?"

My mom told them she didn't know, and the worm probably didn't care.

The girls thought that was preposterous. They put the worm in the garden, then decided to go find his family. At first, they got four other worms. A mom and dad and a brother and sister. But that wasn't enough. "Wait! What if he has other brothers and sisters?" So they spent a good deal of time finding additional siblings.

The rain started up again and my mom told them to come inside, but they were not happy with their findings. What about the grandma and grandpa and aunts and uncles and cousins?

In the end, the girls spent three hours outside hunting for worms, each bringing back a handful after every scouting trip to keep the original worm company. My mother, who doesn't mind bugs that much but HATES worms, opened the door to call the girls inside again and found a huge mound of worms in her garden.

When she told them to come inside, the youngest protested, "But we haven't found his whole family yet!"

My mom told her the worm would be fine, but they were not entirely convinced. They came inside anyway and spent another fifteen minutes staring out the window at the reunited worm family, still worried about all the other displaced worms out there.