In Good Hands

“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
-Tennessee Williams

Some time ago I packed up my belongings and moved to California so that Spouse could become properly suited to his name.
I had to return to Ireland a few years later to get a different visa; the process took a year and involved all sorts of checking up- medical, financial and otherwise.
It was a very fortunate thing that the first journey was not paved with those sorts of obstacles- although it was not without pitfalls of its own.
The morning before I was to depart from Ireland, before connecting to the United States via England, I was informed by telephone that there was an inspired Irish airline strike and flights were cancelled. It would not even then have been so terrible as long they had cancelled all flights instead of just the stretch to London.
In a word, I was on my own. The airline had every small-print legality conveniently worked out: they could only be held accountable for the flight that did not take off.
My passage from London was still scheduled- so if I did not get aboard it was quite my own responsibility and all money paid thus far would fall quietly into a deep pocket not my own.
We did not know what to do for the best. The plan of a simple trip to the airport a mere half an hour from my home had turned into a time-sensitive labyrinth of questions and eliminations, head scratching, hair pulling and grinding of teeth.
After a while I agreed to the following: to drive to the train station; take the next train across Ireland to a ferry; sail to Wales; catch a train at the harbour to take me to England and then a bus straight into London's heart.
It was my only chance but for it to work I needed my mother. I was leaving home and my luggage was considerably heavy. I could not by myself drag my entire life's possessions on that monstrous journey; another pair of hands were needed.
Mater and I bought train and ferry tickets with such tremendous speed that we never saw the colour of our money.
As the ferry docked in Wales and we prepared, after a long, sleepless night of anxiety, to step off the ship for the next portion of the trip, I found that there was a strange problem with my luggage.
I could not drag it down the walkway.
I heaved, I pushed, I pulled; I did all but attempt to drag it by my teeth. It was too heavy and I was exhausted.
As Mater stood by helplessly- for she was in charge of the rest of my bags- I felt the hefty green mountain at my feet suddenly give way. Somebody was helping me. Some kind passenger was putting their own woes aside and assisting a stranger.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
Oh, but not merely for the kindness of it all: the helping hands belonged to a woman who was, I insist, at least in her mid-seventies.
The spritely woman wrapped her hands around one end while I took hold of the other and together we reached the waiting train where, as though the mass of canvas was weightless, she helped me once again before saying farewell.
As it turned out I did reach the airport and board my flight with minutes to spare but when looking back it is my furious struggle with luggage that springs to mind: I will always remember my helper with a curious fusion of humiliation and gratitude.
That is why, then, I will be eternally grateful that no medical exam was required for my entrance to the United States at that particular time: I fear that I would have been much disappointed by the results.