You sit down to dinner on a Sunday evening with twenty-or-so strangers. A week later—after sharing meals, dramas, comedies, discussions and surprises—you say goodbye to these new friends, and you feel sad.

“Sounds like summer camp!” my step-daughter, Kerrie, exclaimed. She’d just picked me up from the airport shuttle, and I was describing my day. It began with poignant farewells in London, followed by a ten-hour flight to Sea-Tac. I too had thought of the summer camp analogy, but I don’t remember any of the kids at camp being as scintillating as the members of my Road Scholar London theater tour. At that introductory dinner, one of the men was telling me about the Florida retirement community where he lives.

“Is it a diversified population?” I asked.

“About as diversified as the people in this room,” he smiled.

I looked around. We were all white, over fifty, seemingly middle class (or upper-middle), more women than men, from all across the United States plus one Canadian. Pretty much who you’d expect to turn out for a gig like this: intellectually curious with the financial resources to feed that curiosity. In other words, privileged. We were reminded of that privilege all week by the homeless who slept on the sidewalk outside our hotel.

This was my first tour experience. Most of our group were Road Scholar veterans with tales of adventures world-wide. Novice that I was, I knew no tour is any better than the person who leads it. Our leader, Dave, was a master of logistics. He adeptly adjusted to the unexpected—which occurred frequently. He was perpetually good-humored in that understated, British-sort-of-way. He got vexed only when hired coach drivers were late or lost or both. Even then, Dave would comment in wry fashion, “They always say they’re ten minutes away. Doesn’t mean anything.”

One of the tour veterans told me that groups either bond or they don’t. I don’t know that our group bonded as a whole, yet there was one individual, Terry, who wove us together in a silent web of caring. I suspect she didn’t know she was doing it.

Terry’s mobility is seriously challenged by the unfortunate combination of an automobile accident and cancer treatments. She depends on a walker but can go short distances with only a cane. When I met her Sunday night I couldn’t imagine how she would manage getting on and off buses, in and out of theaters. She did it all unselfconsciously, with a lovely smile. There was almost always someone from the group at her side to assist—never an assigned role but something that came naturally on a casual, rotating basis.

When we took our two-and-a-half-mile walking trip through London, I was amazed that Terry opted to go along. She gamely navigated cobblestones and curbs, happily snapping photos along the way. When I returned home, I emailed her asking permission to use her photo. That’s when I learned that she’s a respected academician who studies organizational development, specializing in “performances of all kinds.”

I’d gone to London to watch performances on stage. Turned out, the most meaningful performances were of the everyday sort, presented by people I got to know in just one week and will, sad to say, never see again.