It was a great opportunity for Lucas, who had only rarely seen other family members. The call to attend the outing was sent out by Lucas’ mother, Evelyn.

Several siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents were invited, and nobody said no, not when Evelyn revealed the vacation location to be Universal Orlando Resort.

Everyone was looking forward to the trip, and they all made adequate preparations for it. Lucas was even more restless because of his anticipation, but he became very worried on the day of departure.

To hide that, he ran circles around his family while talking about the things he would like to see and things he had to see. The noisy chatter that had started that morning quickly tired Lucas’ family out as they all sat in the van taking them to the airport.

They fervently prayed that he would pipe down, but Evelyn had to resort to threats several times to keep him quiet when he didn’t.

After a long drive, the whole family arrived at the airport and moved to the plane boarding zone. There they met a sea of people trying to get to different places too.

In the chaos, Lucas made the mistake of letting go of his mom’s hand, and he was swallowed up by the throng of people. When he realized he was lost, he hesitated a bit before panicking, and he immediately saw his family moving towards a plane entrance. Ashamed that he had gotten lost, Lucas kept quiet and rejoined them without a sound.

The air hostess checking people in thought Lucas was with the family she had just waved in, so she let him in too. After finding a comfortable seat, Lucas started looking around for his family.

It was not enough to make him worry because it was not his first time on a plane. He knew that they could have been assigned seats anywhere in the plane.

He was more than happy that he got a window seat, and he also felt secure in the knowledge that should he unfasten his seat belts and stand up, his mother would definitely come up to him to chastise him.

After some time, Lucas undid his seat belt and waited for his mom to emerge, but she did not, so he decided he would seek her out on his own.

He wandered about the plane for several minutes, but no one paid him any heed until he got scared and started crying. He could not understand what was happening.

As tears rolled down his cheeks, Lucas walked between the rows of seats, peering into faces he hoped would recognize him. But none of them did.

“Get out of my face kid,” one impatient man growled, further scaring the distressed boy.

After several minutes of vain attempts, Lucas returned to his seat by the window and began to sob quietly. The man sitting next to Lucas took one look at him and immediately focused his attention on the phone he held.

Lucas continued crying until one woman noticed it. She was the person whom Lucas had initially confused as his mom because of her many kids. He would have cried alone the entire flight if the woman had not walked by.

“Why are you crying little darling?” she asked the boy but got no answer from him until she petitioned the man sitting by his side to take her seat, which was in front, while she replaced him.

The moment she sat, Lucas opened up. “I can’t find my parents,” he said, fresh tears spilling down his face.

“Where are they?” she asked him, but he shook his head like he didn’t know.

“I thought you were my mom when you passed by with your family so I followed you into the plane. You’re going to Florida too?” Lucas asked.

“What? Florida?” The woman laughed. “We are headed to California —”

That was when it hit her. The boy was on a plane bound for California while his parents must have joined the one headed to Florida.

“Oh boy,” the woman whistled.

Meanwhile, the Florida-bound plane was detained at the airport because they were missing a passenger — the 8-year-old Lucas.

His mother, who blamed herself, sobbed inconsolably while her husband and other men in the family tried to fan out and search the airport for him.

Back on the plane headed to California, the woman had no idea how to fix the problem, so she decided to reach out to a flight attendant.

After describing the situation to the flight attendant, the plane’s pilot was told, but since they had traveled some distance, it was decided that they would try to contact the boy’s family at the airport.

Meanwhile, after a thorough search of the plane bound for Florida, it was confirmed that the boy was nowhere on the plane, allowing it to take off, albeit without Lucas’ family. They remained at the airport in the hopes of locating him.

Several hours later, they were met by an airport official with information on their boy’s whereabouts. “He got on the wrong plane,” the man told them in relief.

A few hours later, the whole family was reunited with Lucas — his mother was especially happy that her son had returned to her in good health.

To herself, she promised to always listen carefully to her son’s stories and hold his hand tightly to avoid the situation ever happening again.

What did we gain from this story?

• Go out of your way to help. Nobody tried to help Lucas because they didn’t want to be responsible for an 8-year-old. They didn’t care for the extra responsibility, but thankfully a woman with kids of her own took pity on him and chose to help.
• If you don’t know what to do, don’t panic. Knowing that you have to do something is important, but it is even more crucial to know exactly what needs to be done to solve a problem. The woman who helped Lucas had no idea how to help him reach his family, but rather than panic, she consulted the air hostess who informed the pilots and eventually reunited Lucas with his family members.

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If you enjoyed this story, you might like this one about an orphan boy who waits for his mom at the bus stop until a woman gets off the bus and shelters him.

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