The Kindness of Strangers

Last weekend I was in Massachusetts for my friend's funeral.  Everything about those three days was amazing and inspiring.  I'll write about that in another post.  Today, I want to reflect on the kindness of a stranger that I observed on the second leg of my journey home.  In order to be able to afford the trip, I had to settle for a round about trip home with two plane changes and a 9 1/2 hour trip (as opposed to the 5 1/3 hour non-stop trip I usually try to get).  

The Boston to Dulles flight went smoothly, but the Dulles to Houston leg was challenging because there was a young mother in front of me with two very young boys who cried and fussed the entire time.  Finally a lady sitting behind me went up and asked the man sitting next to the mother to change places with her and she spent the last half of the flight entertaining the older of the two while the mother worked at calming the baby down.  I'm sure his ears were bothering him and he had no idea what to do about it.  

I thought that lady was an angel.  She even helped the mother off the plane and at the baggage claim...  Everyone else was blessing her, too, as the plane wasn't as noisy once she sat down and started her magic with the little boy.  That was one of the most thoughtful gestures I've seen in a long time.