It was seven years ago, but it’s burned on my brain. We were flying to Indiana from Houston for the holidays. We only had three children then. My wife had the window seat with our infant daughter in her lap, my oldest daughter was in the middle, and my son sat in the aisle seat. I sat across the aisle from him, which meant it was my task to grab dropped toys, fetch coloring books, offer cheese crackers, take him to the bathroom, mop up his spilled drinks, and do all of the myriad other things one does for a three-year-old (and a five-year-old) on a plane.

The flight was rough, and the kids were tired, and I was up and down to assist them constantly. By the end of the flight, I was exhausted and my nerves were frayed. Plus, I was always conscious of the other passengers, and desperate to pacify my kids lest I irritate them. I was especially aware of a large older man sitting directly behind me. He was gruff looking, with a serious, no-nonsense expression, and he was watching my son and I intently. In the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but be aware that in his day, men didn’t change diapers.

Erin was absorbed with the infant, and too far away to offer much comfort to our boy. So when his ears started hurting during the descent, it fell to me to comfort him from across the aisle. He loathes chewing gum, and he couldn’t understand how to make himself yawn – or at least how to move his jaw in the way one does when one yawns. I was trying to talk him through the ear pain as best I could, but he was in too much discomfort to really listen. Or to try any of my remedies. “Go like this, see? Do this with your mouth. Can you do this? No? You’re not trying. Go like this.” He understood none of it. So I held him, craning my body over the arm rest and across the aisle in a ridiculous, back-wrenching hug that I maintained for several minutes.

We landed and his ears finally popped. We unbuckled and I wearily gathered our things to depart. As I did so, a strong hand grabbed my arm from behind. I turned to see the gruff old man. He looked me right in the eyes and said “you’re a good father”. Then, as if the portent of his words or the intimacy of the contact were suddenly too much for him, he let go of my arm and looked away. Surprised and a little dumbstruck, I stammered my thanks. And then it was time to shepherd my kids off the plane.

I walked up the jetway with the man’s words reverberating within me. A good father. It was one of the greatest compliments I’d ever received – from a total stranger no less – and it touched me to my core. In some ways, it changed me. It made me realize that whatever that man saw in me during those three hours of parenting that compelled him to reach out and say what he said was what I wanted to strive to embody. Him saying that I was a good father made me want to be a better father.

I don’t know that man’s name, and I’ll never see him again. And he can’t know how profoundly his words affected me. But I’m so grateful for him. To this day, when my patience has been tested to its end, and I’m weary, and my kids are on my last nerve, I think about that old man watching the father I was on the plane that day. And I take a breath. And I straighten my spine. And I redouble my efforts to earn that stranger’s respect all over again.

I can only hope to touch someone else’s life with as simple a gesture as the one he made.

Our parents used to tell us not to talk to strangers. But I do. And you should too. Because your words might matter to them (and maybe their kids) much more than you know.