Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant Offers Grieving Mother A Letter Of Hope

A heart-rending tale of a grieving mother shared Thursday on the Facebook page “Love What Matters” has gone viral evoking emotional responses from the social media users. In the post, the woman talks about receiving an emotional letter from a Southwest Airlines flight attendant when she was flying to attend her son’s burial on Aug. 18.

Tricia Belstra from Colorado, who recently lost her son Kyle, was not feeling well while she was onboard the flight 1076. Clutching her barf bag close to her, she somehow managed to sit between two of her co-passengers.

“Then this young man came by; I wish I would have gotten his name. He was getting drink requests. I asked for a diet coke and another glass of water. He leaned in and asked if I was okay. I told him I was flying back to bury my son. He said he was so sorry and brought me a can of water, a glass of ice and my diet coke,” Belstra wrote in the Facebook post.

However, Belstra had no idea how much her grief would touch the unidentified attendant. While she was about to disembark the plane, the flight attendant was present at the door. Handing her a napkin, he again offered her his heartfelt condolences on her loss, she said.

Belstra glanced at the napkin later on and read what it said. "In 2004, my family lost my older brother. As traumatic as it still is for me, I can’t even pretend to truly know the pain you feel as a mother. I did, however, watch my mother’s grieving process (a process that will never end),” the flight attendant had written on the napkin.

“My mum struggled desperately chasing a far away goal of somehow lessening the pain. As she has realized now, the pain hardly lessens. Don't expend your energy trying to chase this. Instead, go all out finding opportunities to experience joy. Visit family, get closer to those you’ve lost touch with, travel,” he added.

The unexpected but an encouraging message of hope made Belstra burst into tears. “I had Father Mike bless him and he said he was one of God’s soul angels. Please share this and I hope it gets back to him. Thank you so much for your kind words from a person that took the time to write this not even knowing me,” she wrote in the post.

The post had been liked more than 49,000 times and shared more than 4,000 times at the time of publishing this story. Belstra’s daughter Joana Marie thanked everyone who took out time to offer prayers and condolences to their family in the comments section of the post. “Thank you #lovewhatmatters for sharing this beautiful story. My mom Tricia and I are so moved by all of the kind words from all of you wonderful people. God bless you all," she said.

Marie also told the people who were wondering if Belstra could locate the kind-hearted flight attendant that the search was on. “I believe we've had so many shares and direct contact with the airline that it may have gotten back to him. Fingers crossed, anyway,” she replied to one of the users. She also confirmed to International Business Times that the family was not aware of any details about the flight attendant. “But we aren't pushing him to reveal himself. He may not want to be named and we want to respect that.”

The story has touched the hearts of many Facebook users and one of them even started a GoFundMe page for Belstra’s late son on the crowdfunding website. “Joana, I'm sure some people would love to offer some assistance with expenses,” wrote Amy Parker Zupancic in the comments section below referring to the page. “You can delete this is you'd like, but I thought I'd post the link to the GoFundMe page for your family.”

(International Business Times also reached out to the Southwest Airlines to seek their comments on the viral Facebook post. We will update the story once we receive the responses.)