On our flight back from Tokyo to L.A we weren’t able to get seats beside each other so Suzi sat right in front of me. Late to board, i noticed Suzi helping out a friendly Japanese lady. The lady happened to be sitting in the aisle to my window (our middle seat unoccupied which is such a blessing on these long hauls!). Before taking off the lady gave Suzi a small box of chocolates, Japanese love to give gifts was one of the lessons we had learnt on the trip. Suzi turned around to me to chat and as i started talking to her the lady took my hand and put two small grape gummy bears in it. She was the sweetest thing!

About an hour into flying we started to experience REALLY bad turbulence. It’s prolly ironic to most but I have a serious fear of flying. The fear must have been imprinted all over my face as the plane bounced up and down like a damn rollercoaster (which i also despise fyi!). Thats when this stranger lat a blanket between our seats and motioned for my hands. I reached out and she squeezed my hands and gently tried to sooth me like as if she were my own mother saying “Hush, its ok”. The look of laughter Suzi gave when she turned around to see us strangers comforting each other was priceless! But i felt like I could cry. Not from the fear, tho that was too real. But from the kindness of strangers.

We’re taught from such a young age that the world is such a dangerous place and you have to be careful and smart and gritty. And it is and you do! But one of my all time favorite things about traveling is always experiencing how inherently kind people can be. If you can’t find something to be thankful for then you’re prolly not thinking hard enough.

EDIT: I wrote this caption on a Thanksgiving instagram post @matteu312 a few months back (thats right, sometimes my caption are stories haha). Last week was a crazy one as a situation back home reminded me about the worst kinds of people, the kind that seem pure evil. Its been  a reflective week and so I just wanted to put this back at the forefront of my thoughts as i’d always rather think of the good than the bad.

jamaican to the world
…and even though I’m afraid I also know I wouldn’t get to see these views without flying!

2 thoughts on “Kindness of strangers

  1. I was wondering why this looked familiar haha. So true though! I am surrounded by so much negativity sometimes that when I encounter decent people it’s such a breath of fresh air. Thanks for sharing your experience

  2. So easy at times to feel inundated by all the bad ish around us. But it’s moments like these that pull us up and keep us afloat. And I also really believe in karma…nothing happens in isolation.

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