My daughter was leaving for an extended six-week trip with her two children. I took her to the airport in plenty of time to make her flight. She had bought three tickets, one for herself and one for her six-year-old daughter and 20 month year old son. We presumed that all would go well at the airport and she and her kids would have a successful flight to their destination.

My daughter had taken great pains to pack her goods well, and check with all the regulations for sizes and weights of bags allowed for her family. She even checked to make sure that she could take her son’s car seat on the plane. She verified that I could get an escort pass to go through security with her family to the departure area of the plane.

After checking in at the ticket counter and getting the boarding passes, my daughter was told that I could not get an escort pass to assist her family get up and go on the plane. This was not what she had been told by airline personnel on the phone a day earlier. She should have contested this right then and there, but she didn’t.

After letting the children get some energy out of them, the departure time was approaching. My daughter and her children got in line to go through security. I noticed the poor layout of security for crowding so many people in a small area, which they had to pass through in order to go to various areas of the airport to catch flights. I caught one of the security people and asked if someone would help my daughter with her children and bags and car seat as they went through security. The man responded that when she arrived at the actual security screening area, where you put everything into plastic tubs, someone would help her. As I watched my daughter and children go through the line and get to the screening area, no one from the airport security personnel was there helping her. They were merely watching everyone pass through. This was disappointing to have a second instance of expecting one thing and getting another.

Fortunately there was a kind man in line behind my daughter. He helped her with the bags and car seat while my daughter wrestled with her energetic 20 month year old son and guided her six-year-old daughter through security. Fortunately, they were able to keep the cart I had checked out in the parking garage to carry their bags from the security area to the flight departure area.

When the time came to board the plane, a third problem occurred. My daughter had not been assigned seats at the ticket counter. They were assigning seats at the flight departure area. When it came time for her family to be assigned seats, the airline person told her that they did not have three seats together for her and her children. My daughter tried to explain that she needed to sit with her boy especially, and hopefully her daughter also. The airline person then asked other passengers if anyone would be willing to change their seats in order to accommodate my daughter and her children. One lady with a teenage person traveling with her looked at my daughter with a frown and said no. Another couple said no. Finally the airline was able to get a couple to sit apart after offering them a $400 gift voucher for a future flight. This to me is not true concern, but merely being paid for an inconvenience.

You have to understand that this is only a one hour and 45 minute flight. Why would it be so hard for an adult or even a youth to sit apart in order to help someone else? Is helping others so unimportant that we only consider our own immediate needs and what is convenient for us?

Once on the plane, the airline stewardess helped my daughter get herself and her two children settled for the flight. But let us remember that the stewardess is getting paid to do this. That is not the same as the man going through security, who helped my daughter because he was concerned and willing to help without being asked. His kindness was appreciated.

This whole incident merely points out the opportunities each of us can have to help someone, if we’re willing and will respond in a positive manner. We don’t know when others may need this, nor what type of help they will need. We don’t know how well we can help them, nor whether our help will be fully appreciated. But we can decide in advance that we will be as concerned about others as ourselves. This is the attitude that more people need in order to make this world a better place to live.

And finally do not forget this one thing. Some people will simply not ask for help when they need it. You can say to yourself, if they don’t ask, I won’t bother to volunteer, even though you can sense that some form of help would be of value to them and probably appreciated. In these situations, volunteer your services. All they can do is say no. Then at least you’ve done your part and feel better about yourself.

I challenge you to be open to helping others. Do not be so much in a hurry, or preoccupied, or in a unfriendly mood that you cannot respond in an appropriate way to the needs of others. This begins in the home among family members, extends to friends and neighbors, and from there to fellow workers and citizens in your community. Ultimately it extends to citizens in your nation and finally to strangers you meet at an international airport.

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Copyright  2008     Leland Pulley