It was in the late 1990s. We were headed back to Boston from London. It was a decade in which airline travel check-in was getting more time-consuming, but was still civil. We were at the American Airlines counter at Heathrow, checking our bags and getting our seat assignments.

Next to us, also checking in, was a little old lady. She had white curls and a pretty face with bright blue eyes. She was dressed nicely but not particularly fashionably. Today I imagine her with a small hat, but I don’t think she was really wearing one.

She was flustered and having trouble getting things settled with the agent. I don’t remember what the problem was. In any case, I asked her if I could help.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d be so grateful. I’ve never been to the States before.”

The agent began typing, and the little old lady began telling me why she was so flustered.

“You see,” she said, “I’m going to visit a man I knew long ago.”

My husband was ready to head to the gate, but I had to hear what she had to say.

She told me a story, parts of which must have been a typical one for men and women of her age.

“It was during the war,” she said. “I was raised in Wales but I had come to London, and even though there was a war going on, I was having a wonderful time. I had met an American soldier—so tall and handsome—and we were in love.”

The soldier had had to leave London. I don’t remember whether she said it was the Battle of the Bulge or D-Day or what it was, but he was gone. He was gone for many months. They corresponded, but not all the letters got through.

The war ended. She stayed in London, waiting for him to return, trying to find him, but he didn’t come.

“Things were in terrible shape,” she said. “I had had to move because of the bombing. Friends he might have contacted were gone. I had changed jobs. If he had come back to find me, he wouldn’t have known where to look.”

The woman waited for many months. Finally, she returned to Wales. Life went on, as it does. She married. She had children. She grew old. She was happy. Her husband died.

And then she got a phone call. The American soldier had scoured Wales and found her.

His unit had not returned to London as he had expected. He had been shipped back to the U. S. He had tried to find her from an ocean away, but it was hard. After he was released from the army, he didn’t have enough money to return to the U. K. to look for her.

So he too had married, and his was a happy marriage with children, a successful career and a nice life in Winchester. After his wife died, he decided he could afford a trip to the British Isles to see if his London lady was still alive. By now there were good phone books, an incipient internet, and other tools he hadn’t had 50 years earlier.

The soldier came to Wales and stayed for several weeks. Then he gave his London lady a ticket to visit him in Winchester.

“I don’t know how long I’m staying,” she confided to me. Although I had helped her solve her check-in problem, I couldn’t help her with her nervousness.

We got on the plane and had an uneventful trip. When I stood up in the aisle I noticed she was sitting several rows behind us.

We landed, got our bags, and went through customs. We were way ahead of her.

At Logan, you know how you go from the international arrivals area into the main terminal where everyone is waiting eagerly behind a rope?

There he was. It had to be him. A tall man in his 70s, handsome as I’ve ever seen, with silver hair. He was straining his neck to catch the first glimpse of someone, and it had to be her. Standing slightly behind him was a tall and handsome younger man, probably in his 40s, who looked like him. This was probably the son who she had said was a lawyer and worked downtown.

The son must have come with his father to ease the arrival, to help with the emotion.

I don’t know what happened. But I know enough. Two people had had happy lives despite being their sorrow over being separated. Then they found each other again. I suppose some grown children could have felt annoyance that their father had harbored a love for someone else while being married to their mother, but this son clearly didn’t. He had been raised right. He was helping his father claim a life he might have led had things been different.

Here’s what I imagine happened. She didn’t return to Wales. They are still alive and still together, in love in old age as they had been before. Their children have met one another and consider themselves like brothers and sisters, happy that their parents had good lives before they met again, and good lives now.

This story is as true as I can remember it. Some of the details may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter. There are many good people in the world who love well, and I am thankful that I was lucky enough to hear one of their stories.