Kindness of strangers

You can never anticipate when acts of kindness will come your way. They can happen anywhere, anytime, quite unexpectedly.

I experienced such an act recently when I was stranded in an airport in Norfolk, Virginia, in the middle of the night while on route to Newark Liberty International from Fort Lauderdale.

Flying has become an integral part of life by now, but I still remember the excitement and novelty of my first flight. When I was 8 years old, my dad and I flew on a TWA jet from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. It was such an adventure. A stewardess — that’s what they were called back then— wearing a hat and a crisp uniform fussed over me. I was the only child on the flight, and she presented me with a TWA Wings pin.

In those days, we applauded when the plane landed.

My recent short flight to Florida from Newark Airport to visit my sister Eve went without a hitch. However, the return trip back to New Jersey was a whole other story.

It was a balmy and clear Sunday afternoon in Florida when I checked in for my 1:52 p.m. flight to Newark. I deposited my bag, passed security, and found a seat at the gate. There was a message saying the flight would have a one-hour delay. OK. No big deal. There are lots of delays lately. So I settled into my seat at the gate with my book and waited.

An hour later, we got onto the airplane and took off. It felt like smooth flying until halfway through, when there was a perceptible turn. And then the plane kept turning.

“Hmm, this feels weird,” I thought, but there was no communication telling us that anything unusual had happened.

A few minutes later, though, the announcement came. “Please don’t hate the messenger, but due to bad weather in the Newark area, we’re getting instructions to delay and reroute this flight to Norfolk, Virginia.”

Norfolk, Virginia? Are you kidding? We’re supposed to be headed to Newark! Admittedly, I was beginning to hate the messenger, and all I could think about was that I had to be home on Sunday evening. My husband had already ordered Chinese food for supper, and I was getting hungry.

As confused and irritated passengers filed out of the airplane, we plied flight attendants with questions. “Where do we go now?” They pointed to the nearest gate, which was Gate 28, and again we found our seats.

Little did we know, but Gate 28 would be our home for the next eight hours.

This vintage poster shows how flying used to be.

What do you do when you’re traveling alone and stranded in a strange airport in a strange city? You find others in the same situation. So I sat next to another woman who was sitting by herself, working on her iPad, and we began talking. Maria also had no clue what was going on, and there was no further communication from the airline.

Finally, we got a message, telling us that the delay would extend to 11:30 p.m.

We had another seven hours to go before getting back on the flight. Suddenly, there was a flurry of texting and phone calls from all the passengers sitting nearby. But connecting with Maria and no longer feeling alone had taken the edge off my anxiety. It felt good to have company in this frustrating situation.

“Do you have a charger?” Maria asked. “Let’s go find charging stations. We’re going to need it.” We walked over to the area where we met Rachel, another lone woman traveler, and immediately formed a threesome. For several hours we bonded, relating some of our personal histories, taking turns watching each other’s luggage while we took short walks and bathroom breaks, and sharing little bags of pretzels and cookies that we had bought at the airport stores. Through our conversations, Rachel and I discovered that her aunt and my sister live in the same community in Florida. Wherever you go you find that it’s a small world, even in an airport in Norfolk.

The hours passed slowly, and we still had no information at 11:30. But by 11:45 one of the security staff, holding a megaphone, made another announcement. Her dour expression spoke volumes, and my stomach clenched. “Newark Airport is closed, due to very bad weather,” she said. “We will not be flying out tonight.”

Passengers who had fallen asleep, suddenly woke up to this news, and descended on her like a pack of wolves. “What time will it be flying out tomorrow? Where do we go now?”

She had no other information to relate and said, “You can sleep in other areas of the airport, or in nearby hotels, but just not here. Gate 28 is closed. We will be leaving at some point tomorrow.”

“When tomorrow?” we asked. “We will let you know,” she said, and turned off her megaphone.

We were on our own. Thoroughly bonded by now, Maria, Rachel, and I decided to stick together to come up with a plan. They had brought only carry-on bags. I still had to retrieve my suitcase from Carousel 5 and walked ahead. In the meantime, Maria had decided to find a hotel room and take a different flight out; she had to start work the next day.

That left Rachel and me, and we decided to figure it out together. Some passengers already had found seats in which to camp out overnight. One family had seven members all spread along the seats near the carousel. But many others walked out to the rideshare area, where they were getting into Ubers, cabs, and Lyfts. Rachel and I decided we had enough of the airport scene, and when she suggested calling a service to drive us home to New Jersey, and splitting the cost, I was totally in.

But after several minutes of calling and not getting responses — it was already 1:30 a.m., after all — we realized that it was at least a five-hour drive. No one, it seemed, wanted to drive us back to New Jersey. We were about to turn back and wait it out in the airport.

Then a little miracle happened. Alvin showed up. He was very affable and agreed to drive us home. He would first drop Rachel off in Lakewood, he said, and then me in Teaneck. I think Alvin saw how frazzled and tired we were, and he gave us a very fair price. While we put our bags in his trunk, Alvin explained that he was a retired veteran and enjoys helping people, “paying it forward.”

Once we were on the road, Alvin shared that he was once stranded in Las Vegas and couldn’t get home for three days. It all began to make sense. We spoke a bit more during the long trip, and by that time I had calmed down enough to grab a few short naps as night turned into early morning.

True to his word, Alvin dropped Rachel in Lakewood, and then drove me to Teaneck. I got home 9:30 on Monday morning. As Alvin was getting my bags out of the trunk, he said his medical appointment for that afternoon would have to be rescheduled. He wouldn’t make it back home, in Virginia, on time.

Looking back, I believe Alvin probably understood that he would miss his appointment when he picked us up. But seeing two frazzled and exhausted women, his kindness kicked into gear. It seemed he related to our situation, having experienced the disorientation and anxiety of being stranded, needing to get back home.

Isn’t it all about those acts of kindness and connections we form that get us through the tough times?

Esther Kook of Teaneck is a reading specialist and freelance writer.