Everything was going wrong as Becca Kinsey was trying to catch her plane with her two toddlers. But thanks to the kindness of three women, Kinsey’s travel day became a lot easier. She shared her story on Facebook — where it has been shared 123,000 times — in the hopes that others will act as kindly as these strangers.
“You don’t need to do something big and grand to make a difference, sometimes you can just hold the door open,” the 31-year-old experience manager at Ernest Young told NBC News.
Kinsey’s sons, Wyatt, 2, and James, 5, are normally well behaved so she didn’t worry too much about taking them to Disney World without her husband (he had started a new job and didn’t have vacation time). But on the return trip, her children were exhausted. On top of tired toddlers, Kinsey misplaced her license and was sent to the wrong end of the airport. She was crunched for time to make it through security.
Suddenly, Wyatt could no longer keep it together and he started screaming. That’s when the first stranger jumped in to help. She let Kinsey move up in the security line. As Kinsey struggled to wrangle her children and bags though security, a second woman grabbed the luggage and assisted Kinsey.
“The 2 year old fell asleep on the airport floor during this whole thing. The woman helping me saw this and said, ‘You know, I’m going to help you out.’ She stays with me up until I am boarding,” Kinsey explained. “Also she's on a different flight than me, but she decides to help me get onto the flight.”
Kinsey couldn’t believe it.
“I would not have made that flight without those two women,” she said.
After the family arrived at their seats on the plane, Wyatt woke up again and started screaming. Kinsey felt mortified.
“I was embarrassed through this whole ordeal,” she said. “I think when you’re traveling with kids, people see you and think, 'Oh god, they are on my flight.' And when my kid started crying, I was so worried.”
Both kids settled back to sleep on top of Kinsey when a third woman stepped in to help.
“(She) says she can hold my 2-year-old. She didn’t have a checked back, she had a carry on. So when the plane landed, she continued to hold him while a stranger offered to hold her carry on. This woman told me, “I think you need a break,’” Kinsey said.
Kinsey posted the story on social media because she hoped that the women would see it and realize how grateful Kinsey felt for their assistance. She also asked everyone who shared the post to donate $5 to Kidd’s Kids, an organization that gives children with life altering conditions a five-day trip to Disney World. She wants to spread the kindness that she received.
“It really blew my mind. It was nice to see people care about other people,” she said.
Jareen Imam contributed to this story.