In Georgia

Flew into Atlanta, got a shuttle to Athens, then an Uber to Presbyterian Village where Carlene and I had a late dinner in the dining room, then drove her Malibu to my Air BnB.  It was hard to find in the dark, but it's a neat old refurbished house in Watkinsville with a comfortable bed.

We keep hearing Trump's people referring to immigrants as "illegal aliens."  At the Atlanta airport  I met two remarkable immigrants who have more soul in their little fingers than those who disparage them could even imagine.

A man from India took me all the way to the shuttle and waited with me until it arrived.  "If you were my grandma, I wouldn't leave you here all by yourself," he said.

As we waited he told me about a couple in their nineties who needed to go to Montgomery, but arrived too late to get a shuttle--so he drove them there and helped them find a hotel. He told me this in all humility--and seemed surprised that I thought it such a big deal.  "Isn't that what people do for their elders?" he asked.

Then I struck up a conversation with a woman who works in Delaware as a caregiver.  She was waiting for a shuttle to take her to Chattanooga to visit her "adoptive mama"--one of her charges she's come to love like a mother.  

She told me about the woman back home she's currently caring for--a heavy woman in her 80s who can't do anything by herself due to a car accident.  She explained how she used a Hoyer lift to move her from toilet to bed and back again.  

"I love her so much," she said.  "It's such an honor to care for her." 

I told her I was visiting my mom who's a hundred.  "What a blessing!" she said.  "Did she get a letter from the President?"  

I figured if she did, she'd toss it--given who the President is, but didn't say that.  I did say, "I'm sure she would have if Obama had still been in the White House,"--to which she said, "I know that's right!" 

"Your mama has seen a lot in her long life," she said.  "I wonder what she thinks of the mess we're in right now."

About that time, I heard them call out "Athens!" 

She lifted my heavy suitcase into the shuttle and gave me a big hug.  "I love you," she said.

These two beautiful humans are among the countless people who come from other places to make a better life and to help Americans in need.  Aliens, they are not.  Illegal, they are not.