The kindness of strangers: a gentle flight attendant made me feel I wasn’t alone

He didn’t try to tell me everything would be all right, because it wouldn’t have been. If he hadn’t been there, I would have been sobbing on my own

I’d completely forgotten it was my little sister’s 40th birthday, so that morning I hurriedly arranged to send some flowers to her house. She died before she could receive them. My sister died at 11am and I got a text from the florist saying they’d delivered the flowers at 11.30am – how ridiculous. They must have sat on her doorstep for days.

I got the call as I was walking through the doors at Emerald airport in Queensland, about to fly home to Brisbane. My stepdad rang me and said, “I need to talk to you about something – your sister’s died.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?” I told him I was about to hop on a plane home and that I’d call him when I got on the ground. I hung up, stunned.

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