I was almost at the Orlando International Airport entrance when a Transportation Security Administration officer fell to his death. After the officer jumped from the airport’s inside hotel balcony into the atrium area, confused travelers ran past security causing grounded flights. My daughter, flying in from Birmingham, called to say all flights into Orlando were indefinitely delayed. For a minute, I considered turning around my car to return home. Instead, I headed to the airport.

I’m glad I did.

For the next five hours, I was reminded of what I love most about humanity — the people. While this sentiment sounds like a Yogi Berra misquote, it’s true. Shortly after the initial chaos of the tragedy subsided, fear turned into mercy.

When the parking lot escalator took me into the main terminal, massive lines snaked through the airport unlike anything I’d ever seen. Thousands of stranded travelers were huddled together without view of security checkpoints. Overtired children clung to their parents. Families split up — some sat on the floor by the walls, while others stayed in line so not to lose their place. The arrival and departures screens lit up like a Christmas tree with one word “DELAY.”

“It’s best I not look at it,” a young mom with 5-year-old twin daughters said pointing to the departures screen. She was flying home to New York after a week at Walt Disney World, evident by the pink glitter Mickey Mouse ears adorned on her girls who started to cry when they couldn’t find a place to sit to eat their late lunch. “They are past the point of reasoning,” she said with a weary half-smile any parent could relate to.

That’s when an older man offered his chair. Then another couple quickly cleaned up their adjoining table and offered their seats as they asked the girls about their favorite part about Disney. Later, out of earshot from the mother and her girls, they told me they stood in line for three hours before finding out their flight had been cancelled.

Sitting on a bench near the arrival gate, I watched so many acts of kindness I stopped counting. The elderly woman who gave up her spot in line to a college student who was trying to make a connecting flight. The couple from Apopka who offered their home to anyone who needed a place to spend the night.

My husband, a Florida native and multiple hurricane survivor, often says we see the best in most people during a crisis. I had a front row seat to such goodness at the airport. Amidst the angst of what had happened, of the sadness, the uncertainty, there was an unspoken reverence and grace.

To quote writer Glennon Doyle Melton, it was “brutiful,” equal parts brutal and beautiful.

Gilly texted to say her flight would arrive after all, as day turned into dusk. Standing at the entry of the arrival gate, I saw a TSA officer. I thanked him for his service, acknowledging his loss. He paused, then thanked me; he had known his lost colleague.

“This is the hardest day of my life,” he said. “And I was here on 9/11.”

This reminded me of another part of humanity, the kind that leads to hubris, to declarations of decisions that make great soundbites but result in horrific outcomes. Words and actions matter. As do paychecks. Just ask federal workers, like TSA officers, required to work for 35 days without pay. I don’t know if the fallen officer was a part of the mandated furlough to work without pay, but I do know he felt the burden, evident by what he shared with coworkers before his suicide.

It’s easy to see why Americans poll at an all-time low for their faith in government. They expect better. The airport tragedy could easily be, and probably will be, politicized. This is a mistake. It’s not about liberals or conservatives. None of this was present as I stood in the concourse. Instead, I witnessed discreet miracles of compassion for tired and lost strangers.

Maybe this is where we begin to rebuild a sense of unity in our country. We are all fellow travelers trying to get home.