Finding a quiet spot at the New York LaGuardia airport before an afternoon flight home to Minneapolis on December 23rd can be a difficult task. However, after searching for twenty minutes, our 23-year-old daughter, Kate found a quiet hallway at the far end of the concourse.
The only other person in the area was a twenty something young woman who was curled into a corner. Kate noticed that the other girl was quietly sobbing to herself, looking at her phone and generally very distraught.
Kate thought for a moment and reached into her travel bag and pulled out a dark chocolate bar that she always keeps on hand in the event of a chocolate emergency. Kate approached the crying woman, put the chocolate bar on top of her backpack and said, “Chocolate always makes everything better.”
Through her tears the young woman said, “Thanks, that’s really sweet of you” then packed it into her bag and headed down the concourse. Kate left the concourse minutes later and headed down to board her flight.
After Kate boarded her flight, she was amazed to see the young woman who was sobbing in the hallway was the last passenger to board the plane to Minneapolis. Even stranger, the woman was seated in the middle seat right in front of Kate. However, as she boarded, she didn’t notice Kate right behind her.
Just as the flight was getting ready to land, Kate over heard the young woman telling the passenger next to her, “I was on the standby list for this flight home to Minneapolis and the airline was just jerking me around not giving me any information. All I wanted to do was to get home for Christmas and this was the last flight out.
“I broke down in tears sitting by myself when the sweetest thing happened. A really wonderful girl just came over to me, gave me a chocolate bar and told me that everything was going to be all right. It was so nice.” The young woman had no idea that Kate was right behind her.
Nice Bike is about acknowledging others, honoring them and making a meaningful connection. Kate didn’t need to find out what was wrong or why the other girl was crying, she just wanted to connect with her during a tough time.
This Christmas, give the gift of Nice Bike. Acknowledge, honor and connect with someone not because of what it does for you but because of what it can do for others. That is a true gift.
Nice Bike, Kate.
Thanks, Mark, for a beautiful story. And congrats on raising a daughter who understands what’s truly important. A family of role models. 🙂
What a sweet story to read the day before Christmas–or at any time. Thank you for posting it, Mark. Kate is a lovely young woman.
Kate’s gesture of reaching out to a stranger shows how compassion and caring works anywhere. Then when the girl recounted the story to another passenger she was giving a compliment about Kate. So it show that it works both ways. Awsome story!