Her Name Is Sincere

When the flight attendant finally arrived at the gate, the entire waiting area erupted into applause. People cheered. We were going home. We were going to beat that mother of a blizzard.

It had already been a long 24 hours.

My original flight from Detroit on American Airlines had been cancelled. I was rebooked…and then that one got cancelled too. My husband came to the rescue and found a one-way ticket on Spirit Airlines. I made it to the gate hopeful. 

Then another announcement.

Our flight couldn’t board yet. One of the flight attendants hadn’t made it to the airport and they were waiting to see if a backup could arrive. The longer we waited in Detroit, the less chance we had of taking off before the storm reached to New York.

But then she appeared. Our hero flight attendant to the rescue.

Relief washed through the room. We were going to board.

Once on the plane, as I reached my seat, there she was standing just in front of my row. Before I sat down, I tapped her arm and said, “Thank you so much. Thanks to you, we get to go home.” 

She smiled. The polite smile of someone who's heard it before.

I asked where home was. 

“Detroit,” she said. 

Then that thing that sometimes happens with strangers on planes, in bars, or even in hospitals, happened. The conversation just opened. I learned that Sincere (yes, that is her name) had just finished a six-day stretch of work and was supposed to finally head home for a day off. But when she landed in Detroit that morning from Fort Lauderdale, she was asked if she could step in for a colleague so our flight wouldn’t be cancelled. 

She said yes. 

Passengers kept boarding. Sincere kept smiling.

Then she got news that her return flight from New York had now just been cancelled…which meant she wasn’t going home. And she was most likely going to get stuck for a day, maybe two.

Most people on our flight will never know the quiet sacrifice Sincere made that day. They’ll simply arrive in New York relieved that they made it home before the storm. But behind that smooth trip was someone who chose to show up so hundreds of strangers could get where they needed to go. 

When we landed and it was time to leave the plane, we said goodbye and spontaneously hugged. I was so grateful and also sorry she wouldn’t be making it home on our behalf (Spirit Airlines got a letter from me, acknowledging Sincere was the whole operation that day.) 

Sincere…thank you for the quiet reminder that we rarely know what someone else is carrying.

The person helping us might be exhausted. The person smiling might have just received difficult news. The person showing up might have had every reason not to.

And sometimes the stranger next to us on the plane…or anywhere else…can gift us a beautiful moment of human connection.