On Death and Love and Northern Vermont

How's a 15 hour travel day sound? Anything for family. Here's the Vermont story.

There are no direct flights from Denver to Burlington. Even if there were, it wouldn’t do me much good. I currently live 45 minutes from Denver, and my final destination is an hour and a half drive from the Burlington airport up into the mountains of northern Vermont. If I could charter a plane and fly nonstop from one airport to the other, this trip to my cousin’s wedding would still take almost seven hours each way. But I can’t, so it’ll take about 12. 

My family is big, but a little smaller these days. I’m not sure if there’s a term for a group of deaths the way there is for groups of animals. A parade of elephants. A litter of puppies. An unkindness of ravens. Death has been an unkindness to my family this year, to put it mildly. It perched on our doorway about a year back, and whenever the family has gathered, we’ve sat in its shadow. 

But not this weekend. This weekend, we are gathering for love. Death is not invited to the mountains of Vermont. We’re clipping its wings and trading them instead for airline tickets. I don’t even want to talk about how much the trade cost. 

Okay. Yes I do. It was $1,200 round trip. Peak season for fall colors had no mercy on my bank account.  I dipped into my emergency fund, closed my eyes, and hit the big blue ‘BOOK’ button. It stung. But not nearly as much as missing this wedding would. 

In the months before the trip, the family group chat formed a strategy for the Friday we were set to arrive: 

4:00 pm: I land in Burlington and head to a nearby Barnes and Noble to kill time. 

7:30 pm: My sister’s connecting flight lands; she picks up the rental car. 

8:00 pm: My sister picks me up, and together, we make the trip up the mountain in the dark. 

After the wedding, she’d drive the car back to Burlington, then fly back to LA; I’d carpool down the mountain with an aunt or uncle and spend the night at a hostel in Burlington—the only available lodging under $500 a night that time of year—and catch my first of two flights back on Monday afternoon. 

If this sounds complicated, it’s because it is. But anything for family. A few weeks later, we boarded our flights. 

On the first plane, I finished reading the only book I packed. On the second, I started writing about the trip ahead of me, spinning metaphors about connecting flights and family connections and the like. I was closing out hour 2 in the Burlington Barnes and Noble Cafe, charging my laptop and smelling like airplane and burnt coffee beans, when the family group chat pinged: my sister missed her connecting flight out of JFK. The next available flight would land at midnight. I panic-called Mom, who was already here and at the rehearsal dinner. She flitted around the restaurant, trying to scare up enough service to convey unbroken sentences. They came through choppy and confusing. Can you get a hotel, can you get an Uber, can you…Becca…can…what is the…hello? 

I hung up and cried only a little, then made a hail Mary Uber request that was accepted by a driver named Joshua, who was 14 minutes away, finishing up another ride. The Uber would be $150 before tip, but that was less than a hotel in Burlington during peak season. The sky was slipping into a daunting blackish-blue, the color of a raven’s wing. It wouldn’t be safe for me to drive up the mountain alone. I was banking on Joshua not to cancel this ride, but fully expecting him to. 

14 minutes later, his Chevy pulled up in front of Barnes and Noble. I’d be making the hour and a half drive up the mountain in his backseat with no service. I shared my location with everyone who would care, fully aware that the lack of service would make it pointless. What about my sister? We’d figure that out later. I’d been traveling since 4:30 am. I needed to arrive. 

To my deep dismay, Joshua was a talker. He played the radio loud, subjecting me to the hits of Train and, eventually, French talk radio when we got closer to the border. He asked if I was from around here (obviously not) and how my night was going (obviously bad). I eventually stopped answering his questions, too exhausted to speak, and the energy in the car shifted in time with my silence. Joshua drove faster, then veered to the side of the road and parked next to a dark field of nothing. He chuckled to himself and unbuckled, the air feeling colder with elevation and fear. I started praying whatever scraps of bible verses I could remember, then checked my phone. No service, no one around, just me and Joshua in the deep black of northern Vermont. I heard a bird in the distance and waited for the unkindness of death. Just my family’s luck this year. A shame this is how I’d have to go. 

“This is where the GPS took us,” Joshua explained, laughing again. A low, deep laugh that made me wish pepper spray was allowed in my carry on. “Is this where you wanted to go?” 

“No,” I whispered. “Please, no.” 

He sighed and stopped the Lyft directions on his phone, marking the end of the ride and surely my end as well. “I don’t want it charging you extra,” he said. “Now tell me again the name of the restaurant you’re headed towards?” 

It took us a full half hour to figure out exactly where I meant to go. We drove back down the mountain enough to find service, then back up while he called a friend who knew this part of the state pretty well. Joshua told me he’d get me there, and I had no choice but to trust that he would. After another 45 minutes of driving, he did. The fear left my system as I climbed out of the car and into my Dad’s arms. “I made it,” I laughed, because laughing felt lighter than crying. 

Dad tapped on the window of the Chevy until Joshua rolled it down. “Thank you for being kind to my daughter,” he said, then whisked me and my carryon bag inside, where, despite looking and smelling like you’d expect after 15 hours of travel, I hugged the bride and groom and all my cousins, and for the first time this year, we laughed. 

The wedding was perfect. I wore a black dress and a matte lip and cried for the happy reasons, mostly. They wrote their own vows and their three dogs all gathered with them at the altar, a perfect little family in their own right, surrounded by the rest of their family, bearing witness. I danced the cha cha slide with my Aunt Sue, the mother of the groom. I did the photo booth with my Aunt Kathie and my sister, who had been rescued from the airport at midnight by my dad and two of our uncles. Is there a name for a group of men, driving a Dodge Charger three hours round trip in total darkness with little to no service, in a state where none of them live, just to pick up a daughter or niece who missed her flight? Allow me to suggest ‘a kindness of Dads.’ 

The next morning, we gathered again for breakfast and more pictures and more tears because the goodbyes get harder when we don’t say them as often. When the bride and groom got wind of me checking into a hostel alone, they insisted I stay with them instead. I laughed, assuming they were kidding—sure, haha, of course, nothing like spending the night after your wedding with your new husband plus his cousin from out of state. But they weren’t kidding, and I went back down the mountain with them, holding tight to the luxury of time. 

I’d endure a hundred terrifying Uber rides and pay off ten roundtrip flights for that one night, drinking leftover wedding beer and watching Hocus Pocus on their couch, talking books and work and family with my cousin and newly minted cousin-in-law. In the morning, they bought me breakfast and dropped me at the airport on their way to their mini-moon, the sort of selfless kindness no one should expect from a bride and groom on their wedding weekend. As I hugged them goodbye, preparing for the 11 hour trip ahead, they insisted I come back again soon. When I said I would, I meant it. Anything to laugh with them again. Anything for family.