Her act of kindness was right thing to do

Jennifer Tyson has been a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines for many years. Because of her seniority, normally she is the purser on long international flights. Only last Friday, she was working the beverage cart for a 16-hour flight from Dubai to Atlanta. As it happens, a passenger was unhappy with his seat. On what is typically a sold-out flight, Jennifer found an empty seat on the aisle. She asked the man in the center of the row if she could move the unhappy passenger to the available seat.

“I won’t put him here if you mind,” she told him. But he was happy to help. This is not her normal experience. She told him, “You are so kind.” To thank him, she offered him air miles, but to arrange the credit she needed to see his ticket. It had an unusual look.

He explained, “I got my ticket at the last minute. You see, my wife was killed in Charleston.” His name is Steve Hurd and his wife was Cynthia Hurd, a librarian who was at Bible study at Emmanuel AME Church last week when nine people were murdered. Word quickly spread among the 300 passengers that Mr. Hurd was aboard. Jennifer called ahead so that when the plane landed in Atlanta, a Delta agent would meet him and expedite his path through immigration. When they landed, though, no one was there to help him.

Jennifer says, “There is a downside to being part of such a large company.” Jennifer was on her way home to Memphis, but she took the time to walk Mr. Hurd through immigration and baggage claim so that he did not miss his flight to Charleston.

It had been a long trip already. Steve Hurd works in the Merchant Marine and was in Oman when he got word of the shooting.

It was a five-hour trip from Oman to Dubai, then 16 hours to Atlanta. When Mr. Hurd got to baggage claim, he realized his cellphone did not work in America. Jennifer loaned him hers, and he talked for a long time to his mother, brother and sister. He kept saying, “I hope it’s a dream. A mistake.”

Jennifer missed her plane home. She didn’t mind. As it turns out, Jennifer is Jamaican and married to Don, an AfricanAmerican from Dallas. They are members of St. John’s United Methodist Church, a historic Midtown church that once had many members who took pride in there being no black faces in the congregation.

Now, African-American members worship freely in a church that welcomes all people.

It has been said that doing the right thing is not complicated; rather, it is just hard to do.

I hope that as Steve Hurd grieves, he remembers that Jennifer Tyson made sure he was not alone during his interminable journey toward tragic loss, and that all of us in Memphis are grateful for the kindness one of our own extended to him.

Through her compassion, all of us were there in a small way just as we were there the day Cynthia died.