Aboard a flight on Alaska Airlines, Tim Cook was struggling to communicate with the flight attendants and the people around him. Both blind and deaf, Tim needed someone who knew sign language to sign into his hands in order to communicate.
When the flight attendants finally decided to ask if anyone else aboard the flight could sign, 15-year-old Clara Daly came to the rescue. Clara had taken classes in ASL because, having dyslexia, she found signing easier to learn than written languages. For the last hour of the flight, the two of them talked as Tim told her about his life before he lost his sight and hearing and she shared about her grandmother, whom she had been visiting.
“You just do things because you do them and you’re supposed to,” Clara
. “That’s how the world works. But then people call you extraordinary, but it’s just something that you do.”Another passenger in the same row as Tim wrote a moving account on Facebook, saying, “I don’t know when I’ve ever seen so many people rally to take care of another human being. All of us in the immediate rows were laughing and smiling and enjoying his obvious delight in having someone to talk to.” That post has been shared over 600,000 times.
We aren’t all equipped to help every person we encounter, but what’s important is that when we are, we do. Clara Daly’s yes was barely a second thought, but it certainly changed Tim Cook’s day, and inspired many people who are hungry to find good in the world.
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