A flight attendant on a Hawaiian Airlines flight to LAX left a mom traveling without her kids in awe, her faith in humanity completely restored. Because Rachel Yuen Nihi and her husband, Jared, were flying solo, the couple joked about all their kids' things they didn't have to lug around the airport, lamented over the fact that they couldn't preboard without their little ones, and began to take note of all the families that were on their flight, preplanning ways they could help their fellow parents if need be.
That's when Rachel noticed a mom traveling alone with her three kids — who all seemed to be under the age of 5 — trying to soothe her youngest child, who was inconsolable.
"I watched her turn into an acrobat, trying to soothe her crying toddler, tossing and turning. Trying to find a position to make him comfortable," Rachel wrote in a post on Facebook. "She paced the aisles back and forth and nothing could calm him down. A couple in front of her kept turning around; giving her a stink eye. As if she was purposely trying to inconvenience them. I watched the woman in front turn around and snicker something at her children and all I could think of was 'you wait until this seat belt sign comes off . . .' Jared could tell I was getting frustrated. Not at the child screaming. Not even at the mom. But irritated that people could see a mother desperately trying to soothe her child and still lack empathy."
Right as Rachel was about to get out of her seat to help the struggling mother, one of the flight attendants walked over and asked to hold the woman's son. Although Rachel noticed that the mom seemed hesitant and a bit embarrassed, the toddler had been crying for over 45 minutes at that point and nothing was working — so when the toddler reached up to the flight attendant, she scooped him up and immediately began to rock him in her arms until he finally stopped crying.
"This is true Aloha spirit," Rachel wrote. "Hawaiian Airlines, you should be proud of the people you hire who go beyond the call of duty and remind the world that kindness isn't all that uncommon . . . To that flight attendant, thank you for your kindness. It was noticed all around that flight. You gave a mother a moment to breathe and you have no idea how priceless this was for everyone around to see."