Young girl throws up on man's shoes on flight and it turns into an enlightened conversation
Life can offer up some insight during the most unlikely moments...
Travelling with kids can no doubt be a stressful and challenging affair to say the least. No doubt it isn't always smooth sailing.
And over and above having to deal with getting them all sorted, there is the added social pressure of having to be considerate to other passengers flying.
In this case it was a mom with her six-year-old daughter, who managed to get a hold of a bag of sweets while mum was busy organising everything.
Mum was distracted by getting everything packed and away before the flight took off. And then suddenly heard someone click their tongue.
When she looked up, she saw her daughter jumping on her seat eating the bag of sweets and offering some to a well-dressed man seated next to her.
It was obvious the well-dressed passenger was not happy with them, but things got worse when the young child felt sick and threw up on his shoes.
"That's when I saw it happening — somehow in slow motion, yet too fast for me to wrest the barf bag from the seat pocket in front of me. Pitching forward, Dahlia heaved up a sludge of candy bits and sticky liquid onto our neighbor's pristine brown leather wingtips." (Business Insider)
How awkward is that? The shunning from what looks like non-parents is normal, but to be seated next to an unhappy person is anything but comfortable.
But things didn't go as expected. The man actually shared something quite personal with the mom, something that literally changed the way they both thought about each other.
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"When his daughter was Dahlia's age, he explained, she was sick — so sick that she often couldn't get out of bed. He used to rub her back just the way I was rubbing Dahlia's. She hadn't made it, he said. She'd passed away from complications from cancer when she was 7. Dahlia sat up and said weakly, "I'm sorry I threw up in your shoes." (Business Insider)
The rest of the flight was different, of course, they had bonded in a way that many strangers aren't able to.
But the whole experience was a huge reminder that sometimes what we see on the surface is not even close to the deep reality that people go through.
Image Courtesy of Pexels