We’ve found this letter of a flight-attendant that is not only heart-touching but also tells us a thing or two about their challenging job. In the past, we have spoken about the courageous Neera Bhanot, based on whose life a Bollywood film is in the making.

Let’s read the letter of an anonymous woman from the flight – who not just ‘smiles, greets, gives food and helps people with cabin luggage’ but also is someone who has to go through tough struggles everyday at work:

“Dear Passenger in 5A, yesterday when I wouldn’t let you come to the front of the airplane because the pilots were going in and out of the cockpit, you informed me I was “just a flight attendant”. I’ve had some time to reflect on that and decided to educate you on a few facts regarding this flight attendant.

I’d like to share with you some of the personal experiences I’ve had in the last twenty years as a flight attendant: I’ve have held the hand of a grieving mother who was flying across the country to claim her 21-year old son’s dead body. I have given my personal clothes to a passenger who threw up all over themselves and had nothing else to put on. I have been poked in my arm and sides many times by people who can’t wait for me to finish with one person before they get their drink. I have held babies while their parent went to the bathroom.

I have been yelled at for not having the exact meal a person wanted. I have prepared an aircraft for an emergency landing and while you were arguing with me about not wanting to turn off your mobile phone, I was hoping I would be able to see my children one more time.

I stood with tears in my eyes at the door of an aircraft while the remains of a soldier was lowered in a flag draped coffin thankful it wasn’t my child, and grieving for the families who stood on the tarmac. I missed Christmas Day with my own family so that you could be with yours.

My work schedule is constantly changing and there are times I go 5-6 days without a real night’s sleep. I watched the events of 9/11 in horror, heartbroken for what my colleagues went through that day.I reassure my child that I would come home – all the while knowing it could happen again.

I watched a man die in front of me because the CPR we performed didn’t revive him, then tried to reverently place his body on the airplane floor for the remainder of the flight and when we landed sat with his body for over an hour until the coroner could pick him up. Please know that I do love my job and I choose to do it.

I have a college degree, am a mother, a grandmother, a friend, a human being. So the next time you look at me and think “just a flight attendant” I hope you quickly remember who is trained and willing to get you out of a crashed airplane, hopefully save you from hijackers, perform CPR on you if need be and – the easiest part of my job -give you food and drinks. Next time you need to travel perhaps you should avoid this “just a flight attendant” and take the bus.

–  A great flight attendant!

So next time you’re on a flight, make sure to warmly greet the one who greets you inspite of whatever is happening in her life.