Escorted by a priest and four young nuns, Mother Teresa briskly walked through the Detroit airport terminal to board a plane to Milwaukee in June 1981.

I had been waiting in the terminal to intercept the celebrated missionary and ask permission to sit next to her on the flight for an interview.

The 1979 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize was to receive the Marquette University Pere Marquette Discovery Award at a ceremony that brought thousands of admirers to the Arena.

I admit the prospect of trying to get an interview with someone whom many considered a "living saint" was daunting. But I was a reporter for the Milwaukee Sentinel and was out to scoop my competitor at The Milwaukee Journal.

In response to my request, Mother Teresa smiled and graciously accepted me as her traveling companion. Mother Teresa, who didn't believe in luxurious accommodations, traveled coach. She had turned in the first-class tickets that Marquette had sent her for her and the nun who was traveling with her.

There was one particularly anxious moment as the plane taxied off the runway, preparing for take off. Mother Teresa and the other nun pulled out their rosary beads and started to pray.

I paled and quickly said my own prayer, "Dear God, please don?t let her pray all the way to Milwaukee." Luckily, she didn't.

In my 31 years as a journalist, I have conducted hundreds of interviews, but none compare to the one in which I sat next to this caring, grandmotherly woman, listening to her talk of her great love of God and of his children particularly the poor and forgotten on Earth

It was amazing to walk through the terminal with this wisp of a figure and see the admiration, respect and awe on the faces of those who realized that Mother Teresa was in their midst. Many people came up to her and reached out to touch her.

Seated in the waiting area before the flight was to board, Mother Teresa was approached by a businessman who knelt in front of her, telling her how much she meant to the world and how much he admired her. She thanked him, urging him to get up, as if embarrassed by his attention.

Before boarding, she regaled the young sisters in the order she founded, the Missionaries of Charity, with stories poking fun at herself. Although "Mother," as she was affectionately called, had an image as a serious, devout woman, she displayed a devilish sense of humor.

She recounted how she almost became a flight attendant. Lacking the fare for a trip on the Indian airline, she offered to pay her way by working as a flight attendant. As a result of her offer, the Indian government gave Mother Teresa a lifetime pass on its planes and trains.

Mother Teresa also chuckled as she recalled how she slept in her sari the first night she adopted the white cotton garment as her habit because she was afraid she wouldn't know how to get it wound around her in the morning.

During the flight, she constantly tried to divert attention from herself and talk about the men, women and children who were suffering in Calcutta and the rest of the world, including the United States.

America, she said, has just as many poor people as have other parts of the world.

"Maybe they are not known, maybe the numbers in America are not hungry for a piece of bread, but they are there. They are the shut-ins, the unwanted, the ones hungry for love. That hunger for love, for that human touch is much greater than the hunger for a piece of bread," she said.

Her reward for caring for the lepers, the abandoned babies and the people left to die in the streets, she said, was, to share the joy of knowing Jesus and loving others as he loves me. Nothing more.

I was struck by her hands: They seemed so large and strong for such a tiny, fragile-looking person. These were hands used to picking up the dying and to ministering tenderly to the sick.

The interview was interrupted several times by passengers coming up to Mother Teresa to offer their support for her work and, in some cases, to challenge her. Mother Teresa proved she could be a formidable opponent. She didn't back down from the director of the Population Action Committee, who confronted her about her stand against artificial contraceptives. After patiently explaining that her missionaries teach natural family planning and have been successful, she asked, "What more do you people want?"

When a priest approached her to talk about the psychological testing of seminarians for the priesthood and to offer a lengthy explanation of various testing methods, Mother Teresa finally interrupted him with a simple question: ?Where does Jesus come in? He's the one who chooses."

After the priest left, Mother Teresa giggled and said, "If I'd had to take one of those tests, I probably wouldn"t have passed."

Mother Teresa, raised a devout Catholic in what is now Macedonia, couldn't understand or support dissent within the church.

We must be carriers of God's love. Sometimes that goes with discontent without having a means of removing that discontent," she said.

When I heard of Mother Teresa's death Friday, I couldn't help thinking of that flight. She wasn't a royal, she didn't wear stunning designer gowns, she wasn't young or pretty. But Mother Teresa radiated compassion and love for all humanity.

She told me in that interview, and she reminded all of us by the way she lived her life, that "tomorrow has not yet come; yesterday has gone. We have only today to love God and one another as God loves us."