Kindness

I was recently visiting my daughter in Arizona, and damaged my knee the day before I was flying back to England. An emergency trip to hospital left me needing to wear a leg brace 24x7, use crutches, and take anti-inflammatory painkillers.

The first angel to help was my daughter's grandmother, but the way she rearranged her entire day to help me collect my medicine, ensure I was fed, and get me back to my hotel was such a blessing, without her the situation would have been so much worse. As it was, I was able to spend the afternoon sorting things out for my journey home and liaise with the travel insurance people.

For various reasons neither I nor my unsurance agent were unable to get Delta to upgrade my seat (flight overbooked, customer phone service overloaded), so I had to hope that turning up at the airport in a disabled state would trigger the staff into sorting things out as I was clearly unable to bend my leg at all. Sine I was flying cattle class. the prospect of 13 hours on a plane in that state made me quite worried.


On the first partof the journey, Phoenix to Minneapolis, I was given a seat in a row of three behind a partition which meant a little bit of extra leg room; even so it was clearly a struggle for me. As I was trying to sit down, a lady behind me, whose seat was of in a row of four and thus had an offset seat with extra leg room offered to swap seats. I was very grateful as I was able to sit down properly! It might not have been a big thing for her but made all the difference to me! I don't know her name, I thanked her on several occasions to the point where she seemed a little embarassed!

The next stage of the journey was from Minneapolis to London, and whilst waiting to board I struck up conversation with true gentleman called Ivan. Just having a sympathetic person was a real boost. On hearing that Delta were unresponsive to my plight he went up to the gate clerk and remonstrated them in some way; I don't know what he said but they changed my seat to one behind a partition. I didn't know before boarding what I would face, but Ivan was a true saint and said that if the seat allocated was unsuitable then I was to come to business class and he would swap seats with me. Well, I was stunned; I'd never flown business, not even premium economy, but I had a good idea of how much it cost, and recognised a true self-sacrificing offer.

As it happened I had a reasonable seat, and using extra pillows and blankets I was only fairly uncomfortable; sufficiently so that I would have felt dishonest swapping with Ivan.

There were other people who helped, but these three made a huge difference to me, two total strangers, and made me realise that the world is still full of kindness, it's just not always visible.