Last week I flew to Pittsburgh, got a rental car to Ohio, picked up my adopted granddaughters, and flew home.

Overall they both did remarkably well traveling cross-country with a stranger, but in the Nashville airport Em lost it. She just did not want to go from gate C whatever to gate A whatever, so she wailed and squirmed as I carried her.

By the time we got to A whatever I was reddened and drenched with sweat, utterly convinced that cardio-resistance workouts do not “go with” masking

And she remained in high dudgeon, as Jane Austen would say.

I was genuinely concerned she would not calm down and I would not be allowed to board a plane with a screaming, squirming child and I would be stranded, far from home, with an inconsolable child.

An amazing woman came to my rescue. She bought the girls coloring books, a bottle of water, tic tacs, She talked us through, back to normal and calm enough to board a plane.

I did not ask her name or get her address, but I wish I had

Knowing, as I do, that I could never thank her enough.