As she prepared to board a flight from Orlando to Philadephia, Kelsey Rae Zwick pushed a stroller and carried both a diaper bag and an oxygen machine for her daughter Lucy.
Both Kelsey and 11-month-old Lucy had smiles on their faces – they were on their way to see “friends” at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where Lucy receives treatment for chronic lung disease.
After boarding their American Airlines plane, they settled into their economy class seat. But not for long.
As described in a Facebook post by Kelsey, a stranger’s act of kindness left her in tears.
“The flight attendant came over and told me you were waiting to switch seats. You were giving up your comfortable, first class seat to us.”
“Not able to hold back tears, I cried my way up the aisle while my daughter Lucy laughed!”
Kelsey said she was unable to thank the man properly as she passed him in the aisle, so she hoped to find him through her Facebook post.
“Thank you,” she wrote. “Not just for the seat itself but for noticing. For seeing us and realising that maybe things are not always easy. For deciding you wanted to show a random act of kindness to US.
“It reminded me how much good there is in this world. I can’t wait to tell Lucy someday.”
Kelsey’s post has gone viral, with almost 578,000 likes and 369,000 shares.
Kelsey told Yahoo Lifestyle someone saw the post and reached out to the man who put Kelsey in touch with him.
“I guess it was his birthday, and he did reach out to us,” she said. “He was thanking me for a birthday to remember. It was the best day. He said it made him and his wife cry, and he said, ‘I am so glad we were on the same flight’.”
In her Facebook post, Kelsey said the man’s actions had inspired her to “pay it forward”.
“AA 588 passenger in seat 2D, we truly feel inspired by your generosity,” she wrote.
Top Comments
This is wonderful and so kind, and I would do the very same in 2 seconds flat, because I've been in the very position to know what this is like to live with as a parent - our son had chronic lung disease and we had to haul oxygen tanks and a pulse oximeter (monitor) with us everywhere. We also had a feeding pump.
It's far from easy, but it becomes your 'normal'. Being in 'alert' mode also becomes your normal. So medicalised were we, that when he finally came home from hospital at almost 9 months, we were out down the local shops and heard a beeping start - we rushed about the pram checking equipment, only to realise it was someone withdrawing cash from the nearby ATM and it was beeping for the take their card! We could laugh about it once we knew he was fine.
P.S. Personally, we were always happy to talk about it if asked by people, we know people like to understand... asking is far better than people just gawking.