Sandwiched between the hubbub and commotion of nearly 400 boarding passengers hobbles a diminutive elderly woman.

Maybe it is her size--a tiny frame, no doubt shrunk more with time. Maybe it is her nun's habit. Maybe it is her smile or her dancing eyes. Whatever it is, she catches my and others' attention, leaving watchful stares in her wake.

When most people enter the plane, they look down, counting the rows till they reach theirs, consumed by the task at hand: make it to your seat and heave a sigh of relief that the ordeal of long-distance travel is temporarily lulled. But when she walks, her eyes glow with a wonder rarely exuded past childhood, a wide-eyed absorption of the world reserved for toddlers in their parents' arms.

Sister Mary Agnes, she later tells me her name is.

Toward the end of the five hour flight, I ask if I can take a picture with her. "Oh, ok," she says. I kneel down and she instinctively clasps my hand. Not the desperate clasp of someone needing a friend--I've felt that from many a traumatized elderly person on the plane--but the assurance of someone who has used this method of comfort when none others could suffice, and now defaults to it in even the most ordinary of circumstances. There is something strangely reassuring when a small nun grasps your hand.

I take two pictures with a polaroid camera, one for me and one for her. On rough days, I have a tiny solace that perhaps she will come across my photo and will say a prayer for me. I myself then feel I owe at least that to her; maybe even nuns have bad days. Maybe salvation is a daily need.