Maureen and Scott from Atlantic City, my husband said you were angels before acknowledging that of course you were human.
We were the 60-something couple struggling mightily to figure out how to get one suitcase and two totes — one quite heavy — onto an escalator at Harrah’s last Saturday. Maybe you remember us — my brand-new husband, Brian, was on crutches, hobbled by an ankle he broke three weeks before our wedding. I was the frazzled-looking brunette who started crying when you offered to help, when Scott grabbed the luggage and heavy tote (and Maureen may have grabbed the lighter one — I was too overwhelmed to notice) and the two of you led us all the winding way to check-in. Lots of much younger people than us, apparently able-bodied, hurried past, but you stopped and offered. Sensibility trumped pride, and we accepted.
You had no way of knowing we had had to cancel our original honeymoon plans to visit Disney and New Orleans because of Brian’s accident. You had no way of knowing we were in AC after five wonderful days in Cape May. You had no way of knowing AC intimidates me. You had no way of knowing the convoluted road we had traveled to the altar, nor the pain and joy along that road. You didn’t know — or ask — if we were good people, where we lived, what we believed or what we did for a living.
You just saw two people in distress and offered to help.
Maybe my husband was right with his first assessment. Maybe you are angels.
Patricia Quigley is a freelance writer from Incarnation Parish, Mantua.