A traveling woman changed the life of a struggling navy veteran after she noticed him limping during his shift at a California airport.
Some people keep their struggles to themselves and never talk about it. They just show up every day and do their job. But even when no one around them notices God knows exactly what they are going through. And sometimes He places just the right person in just the right moment and that is exactly what happened for one navy veteran at a California airport.
A Navy Veteran with Failing Knees
James Blair has been refueling planes at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana California for twenty years. He is 64 years old and a U.S. Navy veteran and his knees are shot from a lifetime of crouching beside aircraft in all kinds of weather.
“When you go up and down on your knees three four times a flight after a while the knees just start giving out,” he said. “I’m in pain all the time.”
But he kept showing up. Every single day.
His mother is 90 years old and she fell in September and ended up in hospice care and Blair was the one taking care of her. He needed the job. He needed every paycheck. So he pushed through the pain because he didn’t have another choice.
A Stranger Notices His Struggle
LaCinda Thackeray was in Southern California to attend the funeral of her cousin’s two year old child. She was at John Wayne Airport waiting for her flight home when she saw something that left her in tears. A man in a yellow vest was limping across the tarmac and he was clearly struggling. But he kept going, kept lifting, kept working.
She started crying right there in the terminal.
“Watching him work so hard even though he could barely move truly broke my heart,” she wrote when she posted the video on TikTok. She just wanted to know who he was. She just wanted someone to help him.
The Video That Moved Millions
That video got 3.5 million views.
A coworker recognized Blair and connected them. Thackeray set up a GoFundMe called “Help Him Retire with Dignity” and the donations came pouring in. As of today, it has crossed $169,000.
Blair didn’t know what to say. “I did not expect that,” he said. “I did not ask for it. I’m just doing my job trying to survive.”
When he first saw the money coming in he actually laughed. “I’ve been doing this job for 20 years and I just didn’t think anybody actually cared,” he said.
They met over FaceTime and Blair had to sit down when he heard her voice. “Thank you very much,” he told her. “You’re a godsend. You’re my angel.”
Blair doesn’t think he’s special. He says he represents all the people out there living with chronic pain and still going to work. He hopes his story encourages someone else to keep going.
And Thackeray hopes people learn to pay attention. “So many people were just saying I just have lost hope,” she said. “Don’t lose hope. Continue to go forward and see what you can do to be those helping hands.”
We walk past people every single day who are limping through something we know nothing about. Sometimes all it takes is one person who actually stops and looks. James Blair didn’t need a miracle. He needed someone to notice him and because one woman did thousands of people showed up for him.
We can be that person for someone. We just have to look.
WATCH: Woman Spots Limping Airport Worker and Raises Over $169K To Help Him Retire
