Here, in the spring of 2025, I’m thinking about kindness. One of the dangers of plugging into the news and staying attuned to what’s happening in the nation and beyond, is that it really does seem like Human Kindness has fled, taking Decency and Respect with her.
Where has she gone? I wonder. Will she ever come back?
I keep thinking of a phrase Shakespeare penned, in which Lady Macbeth concludes that her husband is too full of “the milk of human kindness” to commit murder (spoiler alert: he’s not). I love this expression because human kindness is a mother’s milk—essential, life-sustaining. Without it, we fear not just for our future but for our present.
There’s a difference in kindnesses extended by those we have relationships with —family, friends, colleagues—and kindnesses offered by the unfamiliar people passing by who neither know nor owe us anything. Even if you don’t depend on the kindness of strangers, to quote another iconic protagonist Blanche DuBois, you probably relish it. I know I do.
And in moments of calm, when the news is turned off, I remember that it is always better to light a candle than curse the darkness. When I do that, what I see, of course, is Human Kindness everywhere. I see it in the teenager who holds the subway doors open for me as I bound across the platform to make the R train and in the woman who chases me down the block to return the headphones I’ve dropped. I see Human Kindness on full display all over this city’s five boroughs, in bagel shops and bus stops. Even in that unlikeliest of places, JFK Airport.
I’m assuming that we’ve all had the experience on being trapped on a flight with a baby who would just not stop screaming, right? Sure, the baby might momentarily quiet, possibly long enough for you to think, “Yes! It’s over!” but then, almost immediately, the screaming would resume, only louder, and you’d realize the child was just drawing a deep breath in order to fuel up for the next movement of the horrifying symphony.
I’m talking about the experience where you get off a plane and your husband or sister or taxi driver or whoever picks you up asks about your flight and you tell them it was awful, terrible, possibly the worst flight ever, because there was a baby on board who was bore a striking resemblance to Rosemary’s Baby only, well, much, much louder.
You’ve been a passenger on that plane. But have you been the mother of that child?
I have.
It’s how I know that true, unconditional Human Kindness exists.
My youngest child, known in these parts as Terza, was two years old and I was flying home from Los Angeles with her and my nine-year-old son, Primo.
I didn’t panic when, within a few minutes of taking off, Terza began to cry. She’d had chronic ear infections as a baby which resulted in ear tubes and she was very sensitive to the altitude-induced pressure changes. Nothing that pacis or snacks or milk wouldn’t help.
But these tried-and-true measures didn’t improve things and the more she cried, the more distraught she became. Was she hurt? Sick? I laid a hand on her forehead, checked that her little body was intact. She seemed fine, except for the fact that she squirmed and pawed at her ears.
Primo and I, increasingly desperate, offered candy, screens, toys. I paced the aisles, bouncing her on my hip, but her wails only intensified. I developed the creeping suspicion that this was not going to be a slight hitch in our giddy-up. This was going to be a whole thing.
The suspicion must’ve been contagious because the people seated near me mobilized to help; they tried peek-a-boo, passed toys, offered lollipops. Terza, her face beet-red, wisps of hair matted with sweat, hurled everything to the floor. She arched her back, then suddenly collapsed. She kicked and kicked and kicked. She kicked so much that the pair of baby jeans she wore slowly but steadily shimmied off her legs and dropped to the ground, so that she was just in her diaper.
Later, Primo and I would reflect on this experience and use the loss of pants as a way to measure the intensity of a meltdown. As in, “that little boy freaked out when he dropped his ice cream. It almost turned into a pants-loser.”
But at that moment, on the plane, in the midst of the inaugural pants-loser, there was no reflecting. All my energy was being spent trying to keep hold of Terza so she didn’t accidentally get hurt. There was no way to prevent her from jostling the seat in front of her. I apologized over and over and over to the man seated there, until it was embarrassing to continue. Then I just focused on holding onto Terza and trying not to cry myself.
The hours seemed not to pass. It felt like the plane was suspended, not just in air, but in time. But finally, a flight attendant announced that we were preparing for our descent into JFK and I dared to hope this experience might actually end. And it was at just that point that Terza fell asleep.
After five hours, her body had surrendered to exhaustion. She lay crumpled on my chest, her sweaty head heavy against my clavicle. I pressed my hand into her back to steady her and let my head drop against my seat back.
When the wheels touched down, Primo readied to stand but I told him to wait. We’d let everyone off first, let Terza sleep, I wouldn’t subject anyone on the plane to more crying. So it was that we remained in our seats as all the passengers filed by. I turned my face to the window to avoid the looks of judgement and anger I anticipated. I was just so embarrassed. We’d ruined everyone’s day. What kind of a mother can’t console her child for five hours?
I was startled to feel a hand on my shoulder. Standing next to me was a woman who looked a little older than me, with glasses and a messy bun.
“We’ve all been there,” she said. “You did great.”
The surprise of this compassion, how unearned it felt, and the relief it afforded me, made tears spring to my eyes.
She wasn’t the only one to extend this kindness. At least three other passengers stopped to say they were sorry Terza had had a hard time, that it happens to the best of us, that I was doing a good job.
Each kindness was a rainfall washing away the shame of perceived failure. Each kindness was the sunlight bringing the warmth of fellow feeling.
Primo and I never did find Terza’s pants. When everyone had left, we walked slowly off the plane, just a nine-year-old boy who was going to think twice about air travel in the future, a diaper-clad, sleeping toddler, and a mother who was depleted, but okay. Despair had taken our pants but not our optimism. That had been spared, thanks to the compassion of people we didn’t know and would never see again.
