The sweetest man I met at the airport could turn out to be a failing angel from heaven and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.

I (15F) had skipped school and had run away from home, because I couldn’t take all the arguing anymore. <br><br>Usually I would go to a friend, but since no one was allowed to know my plan, I decided instead to fly to my grandma and grandpa, whom I hadn’t seen in ages. <br><br>I knew I was too young to fly alone, but I was too dumb to notice that I wasn’t the smartest kid on the block, so I tried anyway. <br><br>I didn’t have any ID, just my student card. And no matter how hard I tried, I was told that I couldn’t go through security with that. <br><br>In the end, a police officer stopped me, and I had to admit that I wasn’t actually meeting my parents at the gate, but I was going alone. And since I was underage, that meant a plane ticket wasn’t valid for me. <br><br>I had cried so much already, and I was so frustrated that I couldn’t go to my grandparents, so I sat down on a chair and cried again. <br><br>That’s when the sweetest man I’ve met sat down next to me, asking me what was wrong. Since I was crying too hard to speak, he handed me a napkin and waited.<br><br>When I finally calmed down, I explained my situation. He was very nice and asked for my student card. <br><br>I gave it to him, and he looked at it. Then he asked me when my birthday was. I told him the date, and I remember him saying, “ah, the day of the archangel.”<br><br>It was actually my dad’s birthday, and I found it really cool, that an archangel and my dad were sharing the same day, and that’s why the man asking me that date was so stuck in my mind. <br><br>I didn’t know his name, nor did he tell it to me, so in my head I called him “Mike”. <br><br>Then he said to me, “listen, your ticket won’t be valid. But for the price of a coffee, I could buy you a ticket that lets you go through security.”<br><br>I didn’t have much money left, but I gave him the last cash I had. <br><br>He took it, bought the ticket, and asked me to follow him. <br><br>We walked to the plane, and when we were almost there, he stopped. <br><br>“Look, you know that you aren’t actually supposed to be on this plane, right? So I need you to give me your student card so I can take it to the check in counter, so they know you’re with me.”<br><br>I gave it to him, and watched him walk away.<br><br>I waited. And waited. And waited. <br><br>Eventually I couldn’t wait anymore and decided to go to the check in counter myself, find out what was taking him so long, and ask if I could maybe use the ticket without him. <br><br>When I arrived, I asked for Mike, since I didn’t know his actual name, and they looked at me confused. Said they saw no one like him, nor had they seen anyone like that at all. <br><br>I described him, how tall he was, his hair color, etc. They looked at each other and told me that there was no one like that in their shift today. <br><br>While I could have let it go, I was confused. I walked back to the plane, and saw him standing there. <br><br>“Hey kiddo, I was looking all over for you. You can go in now.”<br><br>I asked him what he was doing, and he told me he went to get my student card, but in reality, the worker at the check in counter was holding it, because the worker found it on the floor. <br><br>I told him what had happened, that they didn’t recognize his description, and he didn’t respond. He just smiled. <br><br>He let me go inside and when I turned around, he was gone. <br><br>Neither the people checking the tickets, nor the pilot or the flight attendants had seen him, nor did they know who he was. <br><br>I always thought about that man, about the kindness he’d shown me. And since my birthday is the same as that of an archangel, my grandma joked that he was an angel himself, who got kicked out of heaven because he was too nice to humans. <br><br>I never found out who he actually was, but to this day, every time I think about it, it brings back the happiest memory, and I hope that someday, I’ll find out who he was and be able to repay him for his kindness. <br><br>It always makes me smile when I imagine the sweetest angel failing his job because he helped me, the girl who was stupid enough to skip school to go fly to her grandparents, just because she wanted to get away from all the arguing.