As a flight attendant, I thought I’d seen it all—until I heard a strange meowing sound near the lavatory mid-flight. Expecting a loose cat, I opened the door and found a barefoot boy, curled up and crying, clutching a crumpled paper bag.
He said his name was Ben. No one by that name was on the manifest—not even as an unaccompanied minor. When asked, he softly said, “Mama told me to go. She said I had to find Aunt Margo.” The bag held a worn stuffed bear and a letter. His mother, ill and unable to care for him, had sent him to find her sister in Los Angeles.
We alerted the captain. Child services met us upon landing. Before leaving, Ben hugged me tight. “Thank you. And for the crackers too.” I couldn’t forget him. Days later, I found Margo—an artist. She hadn’t spoken to her sister in years but rushed to take Ben in.
On a layover in LA, I visited. He smiled, holding his bear. “She lets me paint with her!” Before I left, he gave me a drawing of a plane and wrote, “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
Sometimes, kindness finds its wings in the sky.
