After one of the more unpleasant weeks we’ve all spent in politics, we need a week-ending palate cleanser that restores our faith in humanity. Via The Blaze, ABC News presents us with just that very tonic, reminding us that tragedy can bring out the best in people at the moment when we feel most alone. That wasn’t the way the day started out for Mark Dickinson, whose grandson had been mortally injured by his daughter’s boyfriend. He rushed to get to the airport in Los Angeles to catch a flight to Tucson, connecting from there to Denver, so he could be with his daughter when the doctors turned off the life-support machines. Unfortunately, he got caught in a long security line in which no one would let the distraught grandfather move to the front. Dickinson assumed that his flight had taken off — he was ten minutes past its takeoff time — but ran down to the ramp anyway.

As it turned out, one man made sure that Dickinson didn’t miss his flight — the Southwest pilot who refused to board without him:

Dickinson’s wife Nancy wrote about the incident at her blog:

The pilot held the plane that was supposed to take off at 11:50 until 12:02 when my husband got there.

As my husband walked down the Jetway with the pilot, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for this.”

The pilot responded with, “They can’t go anywhere without me and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

My husband was able to take his first deep breath of the day.

Our prayers go out for the Dickinsons for their loss — and for the pilot who followed the right schedule.