Other Stories too...

There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right down the middle of her forehead. It was a silly nursery rhyme but it accurately described how she FELT right then. Just like a little girl, tugging at the stubborn blond curl with her fingers but at the same time, presenting a pretty, not horrid picture to the casual observer. From her flaxen blonde curly hair, big blue eyes, long fit legs and million dollar smile (as her dearest friend Mitch often told her), to her suede high heeled boots and perky mini skirt, she was quite the package, tied up with a bow and ready for Christmas.

But on closer inspection, some might notice a sadness in her eyes when no one was looking, almost the forlorn look of a lost child, like the lost little girl in her favorite Christmas story of Holly and Ivy. And, like that story, she was traveling as well, only she was sitting on an airplane not a train and she was alone, even carrying an apple in her bag to eat just like the story as well.

And, like Holly and Ivy, hers was an unconventional Christmas story. It was a story about wishing, about two strangers, a teen and a fitness instructor who were to find an unique bond while on a plane. It was about cold December days, the importance of kids and family at Christmas, a story about saying goodbyes without answers and trying to rediscover joy in the beauty of others. It was a story about hope, and the power of Love.

It started and ended on one two and a half hour plane ride from Colorado to Houston. She was sitting, checking her phone, when a young man squeezed into the seat past her in the dimly lit fully loaded airplane in Denver, with his backpack slung over his shoulder and a knit winter cap pulled over his head down to his eyes so she could barely see them. He kept his head low and slouched down in the seat beside her, unloading a box of nerds from his pants into the seat pocket in front of him and tossing a trilogy book in the seat beside him.

She smiled to herself thinking of her daughter who was probably about the same age as this teen, who also was a sugar addict and loved nerds and trilogy books. She had been wanting to spend more time with her daughter and this trip would hopefully accomplish that. The two sat quietly, the free TV preview droning in the mini screens in front of them. She went back to her I phone.

Not even six months ago her life had been completely different. Though she looked the picture of happiness, she had been, in fact, desperately unhappy with her marriage, and had decided to end her marriage three years ago when she was swept off her feet by a very real life Romeo. He was everything she had ever fantasized about, curly tousled hair, penetrating eyes and warm enveloping hugs. He was devoted to her, spending hours talking to her on the phone and sending her romantic text messages, flowers and gifts. When he asked her to marry him she accepted joyfully and even began hunting for a home to share with him. She could feel her eyes starting to water as she thought about these things, they were in the past, so she shook her head NO and tried to stop thinking about it by looking at twitter, checking messages and reading posts from other tweets, hoping for one in particular but as always it was not there.

As she looked at her phone, she noticed the teenage boy was half way looking over her shoulde, so she casually asked him “do you have a twitter account?”

“Nope” he said, and he continued to talk, saying “I was in a life skills school in Utah and I did not really have time for much else.”

She looked up at him with a spark of curiosity. She knew a lot about teens and life skills school sounded like “troubled teen” to her so she was interested and temporarily forgot about her twitter.

Though she knew very little about life skills schools, she had a feeling it might have to do with teens who have issues at school, with authority, drugs ets. She had friends who had kids who needed outside help to make it through the high school trauma drama. She felt immediately sympathetic to this stranger because she had felt traumatized by high school as well and knew how difficult it could be. She turned a bit sideways in her seat and took a closer look at him.

He had pulled off the knit cap and his hair was long, framing his face in a dark fringe. He had an intent look in his eyes, interesting innocent eyes which sometimes looked green and sometimes looked blue. He barely fit in the seat, his long frame was probably more than six feet tall and he was wearing the typical teenage wardrobe of saggy faded jeans and a nondescript T shirt. He had stuffed a trendy plaid ski jacket in the overhead bin before he sat down as well.

He looked no different than a zillion other teens and yet, with that one comment, he had completely captured her attention.

“Wow”, she said, “ that is pretty kool that you are so motivated to do school instead of something like twitter.” (She loved twitter, though she knew it was a time hog,and she was surprised and interested that he did not.)

“Yeah” he said. “ Without going into a lot of detail, I am eighteen now so when I got there and found out what the things were at school that needed to be done, I just made up my mind to do them. Lots of other kids there have to stay longer than two years to get it all done but I managed to do it all in seven months.”

She smiled at him and he smiled back. She thought a moment before speaking about her next comment, because she wanted to show interest in him without prying to much into his personal life. “I think that is great” she said. “I do not know much about what a life skills school is, what did you learn to do?”

He laughed a quick little chuckle and said, “ Well, I live in Sugarland, and I have come back and forth from Colorado to Texas a bunch of times and usually I just sleep on the plane, which is why I wear this hat cuz then I can just pull it over my eyes. But when someone starts talking to me, I like talking too, its just usually I am antisocial, is that the word for it? “

“No,” she said, “I would not say you are antisocial, I would say you are reserved, until you find out a person is interested in talking to you.” “You remind me of my daughter Kendall, because she likes to wear knit hats and she LOVES nerds like you do. “ “She is reserved around people too until they get to know her and she loves to talk once she opens up.”

He tried to stifle a big yawn and his eyes started watering from the yawn, which she noticed. She mentioned that perhaps he was sleepy and he did not need to talk if he would prefer to sleep, as she was going to work on her computer. He replied that he was not yawning because he was bored but rather because he was trying to pop his ears.

She wasn't sure she believed him because his eyes looked really tired but she knew better than to argue with a teenager so she just smiled. And he turned in his seat towards her, leaned forward, and began to talk about himself as if to prove he was not tired.

"My name is Steve", “I was in a life skills school because I was having problems (that I am not going to go into), and I needed to learn how do do basic relationship things for myself that I was not learning in regular high school. I did not have a lot of self esteem or confidence so the school taught me that. I realized if I can do the things that most people take two years to do, in only seven months, then maybe I can do other things too. “

“I want to go into the army, I want to fight! I mean I don't actually want to just go kill people but I do want to learn how to shoot a gun and so right now I want to try to get built up with muscle.”

She was impressed. In seven months the teen had managed to get motivated again to do something constructive with his life, in spite of the teenage trauma drama he must have been experiencing in high school. That was no small task.

Her mind drifted again to the man of her dreams, the one she had agreed to marry, Mitch. He had a son, almost the same age. His son, two years younger at age sixteen, also had been having trouble in high school. She had never met his son but had seen pictures and he looked a lot like this guy on the plane only he had blond instead of dark brown hair, and had the same innocent eyes and even the demeanor of being aggressively intelligent.

She adored kids, had five of her own, so she had naturally tackled the problems of Mitch's son as her own and had also taken his needs under her mothering wing when Mitch had asked for her opinions regarding his son. Her own sons were athletes like herself, one was trying to compete in the Olympics and the other had just finished an iron man competition. She was a firm believer that sports helped give kids particularly teens, an opportunity to compete, excel and feel good about themselves. She felt that sports should never be eliminated because of grades or other issues and this was not just because she was a personal trainer. Her own father had encouraged all his five girls to do their best in sports and taught them to believe in themselves and have confidence that they were every bit as good as guys. As a result all four of her sisters had become very successful, and one was an attorney, a stock brocker, a  realtor, and a marketing director while she was a journalist and trainer.

Sports also helped them learn how to function as a team, a VERY important life skill. Of course her career as a personal trainer made her feel even more strongly about the value of physical competence and agility. While her sons did their various sports, Mitch's son had become a scratch basketball player and his dad loved coaching him in the sport. She just could not seem to stop thinking about them. She tried to blink away the memories and turned back to her airplane companion.

“Wow” she said, “you finished in a record amount of time with your school and I agree that you should feel motivated to do something important with you life like the military.” She wondered if this teen was good at any sports which might help him when he tried to make it into the military.

He jumped in the conversation again before she could ask her question,and she could tell he was excited about his plan.

“I do not know actually if I want to go into the army or navy yet, I just have to see what is the better one for me, which one will want me.”

She was thinking in her head about her nephew who had gotten into trouble with drugs and how she wished he had decided he wanted to be in the Military like this young man was planning to do, as it might have given him a sense of accomplishment. She also thought about her other nephew who had gone into the Navy just like two of her cousins, and how he was loving his new life. There was such a contrast between the ones who had gotten involved in drugs and the ones who had gone into the military in her opinion. But what was most thought provoking was THIS young mans' uncanny similarity not just to those in her family, but also to Mitch's son, because he had also wanted to go into the military too but his dad was unwilling to support it because he did not want anything bad to happen to his son in a war. It was an ironic fear she thought, because more kids hurt THEMSELVES with drugs than with war. She had no statistics to prove it but she just had a gut feeling. There was something so pointless about a drug overdose...

She thought about a quote from the Christmas pageant she had seen recently, “and they were sore afraid, and the angel said unto them fear not for behold I bring you tidings of great joy”. She wondered if Mitch was still fearful for his son?

Mitch's son had just begun experimenting with drugs but he had already ended up in the hospital from car surfing and falling on his head, something that could have been fatal.

He had already made some bad decisions and had become a major concern for her because she knew he needed help. She had agonized about the things that happened daily to this teenager who lived in another state because she had loved his dad. Her whole sense of happiness had become entangled in the lives of his family and his problems had become her problems as well. But that was six months ago.

She looked at the teenager sitting beside her chomping on his stockpile of nerds and she could imagine and understand how appealing the military life would seem to a teen wanting to be on his own, wanting to be respected. She believed that these places could help a young man get his life going in a more positive direction and she felt like even though no choice was easy because all choices involved an element of danger, this unpredictability is what made these choices significant and growth producing and also have value of leading to worthwhile accomplishments. Things that could be easily attained never seem to mean as much.

She decided to be supportive. She looked at him and said, “if you really want to be in battle and shoot a gun, perhaps you should go into the marines?” He looked down and shook his head sadly, “I do not have the right body for the marines,” he said, “ I do not last very long with running, what is it called?”

“Endurance?” she asked? “Yeah” he said, “I do not have endurance.”

She made a mental note to herself that even though she thought ALL the branches of the military were great..the army, navy, air-force AND marines, she still did not want the guy to give up on his dream because he did not think he was good enough for the one he really wanted.

As a lifetime personal trainer, this was a comment she could not just leave lying there.

She smiled to herself because this is what she love to do, help people gain confidence in doing what they wanted to do in life because they had learned how to be physically stronger and more fit and more comfortable with their bodies which in turn gave them more confidence in life in general.

“I am a personal trainer” she said, “so maybe I can help you with that”, and she asked him how tall he was and how much he weighed. He said he was six feet two inches tall and weighed 160 pounds. He told her his plan to gain muscle was to eat more protein and that his friend had told him a special type of protein to get and he asked her if she knew the brand.

He said he also planned to get back into swimming and running but that he had just stopped smoking six months ago and was finding it difficult to run and breathe after having smoked so much.

She found herself comparing again what he said to that of Mitch's son had also started smoking and had almost caught their house on fire because of smoking in the attic. She wondered if he had stopped smoking now. She did not know because she was no longer talking to his dad...they were not getting married after all, in fact she had not spoken to him for six months. It was still painful to think about. She was sad about not talking to him anymore and she felt sad for this boy in front of her, sad that kids had to grow up in such a hard world.

She had wished for a soul-mate and had found him in Mitch, only to lose him. She believed did the right thing most of the time by telling him goodbye, but the agony it still caused her led her to keep looking for a some sort of sign to confirm that she had made the right decision, a difficult decision that separated her forever from what she thought was the man of her dreams. She could feel the wishing, it was tangible, like the wishing in the story of Ivy, her looking in the snow framed windows trying to find her grandmother was similar to her own wishes, also looking for a sign that she was not alone, one that would give her peace, one that would not leave her feeling empty and sad.

She came back in thought to the present, dragging herself reluctantly out of her thoughts about the recent past. She simply had not been the perfect person to help Mitch or his son David because she was not Davids real mom, and his real mom, even though he had a poor relationship with her, was still alive. But this boy Steve who was here right now, she WAS in a perfect place to offer help. Maybe this was the sign she had been wishing for? She felt an angel touch drift over her consciousness. Wishes and dreams are real when they are acted upon and brought to fruition, and can be felt and seen, even if they arrive in a different perspective than what the person is expecting. The trainer, Lisa, recognized the touch of compassion and she became even more acutely alert to what this young man was saying face to face with her.

Here, right in front of her was a young man she knew she could help which in turn would help others too. She felt almost like she had been placed in a parallel universe to show her that she did do, and could do good things, wherever life took her. She remembered reading something that struck her as related to this thought,  “genuine Love adds to moral and physical power, while restoring health.” She knew her love had been genuine and it still was even today and today her love for this stranger could add to his moral and physical power, not take away from it.

After listening to his plans, she carefully started to answer his questions and gave him her best fitness guidance. She told him that at 160 pounds, he had to eat at least 200 grams of protein through out the day to gain muscle. She told him it was OK to use protein powder for a supplement but that it was better to eat real food. She asked him if he knew what protein was.

“ Yeah I know what it is and I like Ribs, Brisket and Bacon,” he said. She laughed, not at him, but at his concept of protein, because he sounded like a lot of adults she had worked with as a personal trainer who were now trying to LOSE weight not GAIN.

“Ribs..fat, Brisket..Fat, Bacon..Fat” she said, with a smile. “I like those things too but I rarely eat them because they have such a high fat content.” “Fat is not a healthy way to gain mass and it really does not add to your muscle it just covers the muscle up with a layer of fat.” “One Egg is about 8 grams protein, chicken breast, about 20 grams, and a foil pack of tuna about 15 grams for a serving. These foods are high protein but low fat. Sot they are better than ribs, or brisket or bacon.”

“Wow, you just rattle off those numbers like you know it all by heart “ he said, blinking his eyes in surprise. “So, yeah I like fried chicken, I can dip it in Ranch Dressing”, he said. She laughed again. “Oh no, not the ranch” she said and laughed out loud. “My sisters son Adrien puts Ranch on EVERYTHING. But Ranch has a lot of fat just like bacon or ribs or wings. You add ranch and you add back in the fat. So, because I realize people put ranch on chicken because it makes it taste better, I have to come up with alternative dips. Why don't you switch to dipping it in Salsa, or use honey or jelly or home made honey mixed with mustard, to give it some moisture and flavor without adding back the fat.?” He looked at her with a wide eyed look of a idea dawning on his thought.

“Hey I like honey, I could do that!” “Good” she said.

She told him that she had trained some professional football players in Sugarland, BIG guys who were not happy with the amount of fat their bodies had accumulated because of poor eating choices. She explained that it was much harder to change eating habits as an adult having grown up with bad eating choices all the time. He seemed to understand what she was saying.

She felt like she was making some helpful remarks, because even though she had only spoken to him for minutes, she did know that if a person is receptive to change, they will do it if they like the alternative as much as what it is they are giving up, and it was great that this guy sounded excited about the ideas she was sharing.

Lisa had learned that there was one thing that was magical about teens, and it  was that they seemed so open to change, much more so than their adult counterparts, and because of their openness, they were able to make progress so much faster towards goals.

She explained how there are many different brands of protein powder for supplementation and how it is mostly a matter of personal taste. She told him to try and get a brand that had the least amount of additives and chemicals like those with no fake sugars etc. She also explained that he could add two or three pounds of muscle a month if he was diligent with the protein and consistent with workouts, including weight training workouts.

He was surprised and excited by that thought. “So if you start now and you are not planning to go into the armed forces for a year, just think about how different you could look by then,” she said. “Really I could do that?” he asked. “YEP” she said. “Just plan it out on a calendar and do not use any steroids to get the results because it is bad for you long term” (in her experience, many people, particularly those who had never learned to delay gratification, were suckers for a quick fix such as steroids regarding mass building OR weight loss and she wanted to shut it down before he encountered that suggestion from some gym rat).

She also suggested that since he liked to swim, that he could kick that workout up a notch by swimming using a buoy between his feet so his upper body was forced to do all the work with no legs. She told him how to rest the muscles for 48 hours following a workout so they had a chance to recover and grow. He listened intently and then said “ Wow, I feel like I should pay you!”

She smiled. He did not know how much she liked to help people who are trying to make a difference with their lives and that sometimes that is better payment than any amount of cash, plus she liked his plan to go into the armed forces so she wanted to help him.

She simply smiled and told him she was available to help him for free through her website email. She gave him her business card and he smiled a big smile of gratitude. “You do not mind helping me?” he asked. “Not at all” she answered. She realized that he liked that she approved of his plan.

“Look” she said, you have inspired me with your goals and I want to write about you and I will name my story after you Steve.” "Look for it on my website". She felt like if she wrote about him he would KNOW she cared about what happened to him, and that it was not all just words.

She told him that she would love it if he would email her a note telling her when he had made it into the military. She showed him her website on her computer and he made her laugh by asking her if she was a model. “I just model fitness” she said and told him about her five kids and he couldn't believe she had so many kids and still looked great. “You can do whatever you set your mind to do” she said..if your goal is muscle mass, you can plan it out and accomplish it too.” She wanted him to know that there were others besides his immediate circle of friends and family who were cheering, even silently, for his success..for a variety of reasons..she wanted to know that at least one teen had made it through the jungle of teenage turmoil and survived.

She thought about Mitch again, how she had wished and wished to know how he was doing, how his son was doing, if he missed her like she missed him.

It is the hardest thing in the world to let someone go when you love them just because it is the right thing to do, because you love them and want their happiness more than you want your own. Mitch had adopted his son and two other children. He needed to be a dad to them because they were having difficulties and his time with Lisa just took away Mitch from his kids. Mitch wanted to be a good dad and she was an unnecessary distraction to Mitch, and his kids would have suffered if she had stayed in the picture, so she had said goodbye. Her life had fallen apart since then, she was surrounded by strange events, a cyberstalker, an arrest, a cross country move and strange phone calls and messages. She did not understand any of it and wanted her friend and love back but no matter how much she missed his love and attention, she still knew inside that she needed to let Mitch learn to parent without her, because his kids needed him more.

But the decision continued to haunt her and she wished and wished to know if she had made a mistake. But “Live in the perfect present” was what so many life coaches on twitter had constantly told her. She could start with right now. So if she could not help David, or talk to Mitch, or even know how he was doing, maybe she could help Steve. She sensed Steve's lack of confidence and his story was compelling.

Steve hesitated, and explained that he was fearful possibly that he might disappoint her if he failed. He replied that he was still a year away from going after his dream because he still had a year left of high school.

Then he said something very eighteen year old but also a hundred years old...it was a timeless comment because people have ALL felt a similar way at some point in their lives. He said ”I am excited about being finished with school but I am also a bit scared because I do not know how it will be to go back home. I have a girlfriend there but we have not dated really since I left high school. Excited but scared..., boy did she know how that felt, timeless emotions..expressed with pure honesty and openness.

His eighteen year old words again so similiar to the other sixteen year old boy living and growing up with his dad far away. That boy also had a girlfriend who caused him a lot of stress and David's dad had spent hours talking to his love Lisa about the son and his girlfriend problems, almost to the point where she felt the boy (David) was one of her kids too. She knew how critical a mans' first relationship with a girl was to his happiness, stability and peace of mind and she knew this guy Steve, just like David, was feeling vulnerable and was actually being very open by talking to her about it, something a LOT of adults are NOT capable of doing.

She had a million different things about relationships that she wanted to say, like “get your career going, then worry about girls”, or “You will meet many people you will think are great but you won't KNOW for sure till you have had some life experiences”, but she said nothing because she knew teenagers did not want to be lectured, especially when trying to make adult decisions.

She asked him instead, about going into the military, and wondered if that was really the reason why he wanted to get in shape, and was so motivated to work out. He grinned and said he ALSO did it to meet the ladies. She laughed and told him that her son had lots of girlfriends and he wasn't BIG muscular, but he was LEAN muscular, and that it had a lot more to do with being confident.

He laughed and said he was just kidding but at this point, Steve decided he wanted to share some concerns he had about his girlfriend. He told Lisa that his girlfriend did not do any of the drugs he had done, but that she did like to drink socially. He said it was better than his first girlfriend who had even more issues, even though he had loved her.

The first girlfriend came from another town with her parents and spent a lot of time with his family at his home until she had to move back to the town she came from. Apparently, she had a prior dating relationship with another boy who was physically violent towards her, and when she returned to the town, he beat her so badly that he put her in the hospital.

As Lisa sat captivated in her airplane seat listening to his girlfriend story. she was amazed that someone so young had already experienced such difficulties in what should have been fun dating relationships.

He said that he called the police about the guy who was abusive and that the abusive person was now in jail.

Police...

Jail...

She felt sick to her stomach. That was another story they had in common...but he did not know about it, another part of the weirdness that had surrounded her following her breakup with Mitch.

She told him she thought it was good that he could talk to the girlfriend and help her with her problems. He said that the girlfriend had been reluctant to share her problems with anyone except for him and that he was not just her boyfriend, but also her friend, he had been successful in protecting her from further abuse.

She looked at him, so wise he was for an eighteen year old. He was right, it is good to be able to talk to people about your problems. Sometimes by talking to someone else you can help ease their stress, and sometimes you can ease your own stress too. She got the impression that Steve had decided that his current girlfriend's drinking habit, was far less worrisome than a girlfriend who had an ex who was criminally abusive. She was inclined to agree and again the similarities between this guy Steve and her boyfriends son David, were uncanny.

She was fighting a feeling of protectiveness for this stranger teen because he seemed symbolic of so many teens today, bright, open, honest, trying to communicate, trying to make decisions, trying to contribute. She wanted to tackle the world for this teen but she knew the only way he could be successful was to tackle it for himself. All she could do was cheer him on for making the best decisions he could on his own.

She felt like she could use a cheering section for her own difficult decisions. Without feeling sorry for herself, she still felt like no one ever gets to the point where decisions become easy, and she saw that  there are always more hard decisions to make. All these months she had agonized about her decision to stop being involved with David's dad because of the son's intense need for more DAD time and a stable home life. She had deeply loved his dad but knew the three kids, in their fragile teenage years would would not transition well to a new mom at this phase of their growing up. It had become obvious that it was the right thing to do for her to bow out. But ever since breaking off communication, she had been miserable without Mitch in her life, he had been her cheering section. Even as recently as getting seated on the plane, she would find herself looking for some sign, any sign to reassure her that she had sacrificed her own happiness for a worthy cause. She prayed daily in her heart that David was happier and developing a better relationship with his dad now that she was not involved in the picture any more and that Mitch was happy too. The parent child relationship is so crucial to kids handling life problems well. Lisa knew she had a strong relationship with her kids and was proud of them even though they had made mistakes, they were doing amazing things with their intelligence and abilities. She wondered if Steve had a good relationship with his own parents.

She asked Steve what he was going to do if he had any concerns when he got back to his home. He said he had a sponsor, an older man who could talk to him whenever he needed, and that he felt very close to the sponsor.

He said that even though he wanted to go home and he wanted to finish school, he was afraid of what it was gonna be like because all of his real friends were at the life skills school that he had left, and even though he had learned how to get along without the drugs and without the smoking, he was worried about going back into that old environment.

Yes that could be tough. She had decided to go back as well, back to her torn marriage, back to old problems, back to coping with a difficult relationship, just like Steve was doing, and it WAS scary and it WAS impossible to know if success would be at the end of it all. Relationships are a two way street and she knew she had done her share of making mistakes as well. She mentally agreed with his concerns because she knew many people have relapses when it comes to drugs and alcohol and even relationships. And many marriages end.

The warm sweet smell of baking cookies filled the cabin area as they sat, lifting and lightening the mood immediately. “I love the chocolate chip cookies they give on this airlines” Steve said and leaned forward in his seat so as to be sure he would not miss his cookie. “They cook them right on the plane” he said with obvious enthusiasm. As they waited for the cookies, she thought about his latest revelations comparing them to David's last escapades. how he was caught trying to steal a car, how he was starting to experiment with pot and other drugs and how his dad had always been so worried about him. These escapades continuously traumatized David's dad and his siblings.

She thought about the letter she had helped his dad write to his son to express love and caring and the letter had taken her hours to help him write. Mitch had said when his son read it, he re read it three times. It had an impact on David. Kids need to know even when they are doing bad things, that their parents still love them. Lisa felt that the son's escapades had distanced the David from his dad and she had wanted to help bridge the gap. At the time she ended the relationship however, the son was still lying to his dad whenever Mitch tried to help him and the lying was a nemesis for the dad.

She wondered if Steve was honest with his parents. She wondered if his parents knew he was scared.

She talked more to him as they munched on the warm chocolate chip cookies, and tried to encourage him by telling him that everybody struggles with difficulties. She decided open up herself to her scary story and told him her own life changing event. She told him about how she, (a grownup who had never broken rules or even had anything worse than a traffic ticket,) got arrested and put in jail overnight for simply throwing her own cyberhacked computer on the floor of her country log cabin. (not AT anyone, just down on the floor) Apparently, in Colorado, she learned later, a community property state, you cannot throw anything on the floor and damage it even if it is yours because you are damaging another persons property, as well. But how did the cops see her in her cabin in the middle of nowhere? Why did they wait two hours to come arrest her.

That experience, which was in court only four days later, ended with probation, making her very distrustful of the system and also very afraid of going to jail. In addition, it made her aware of wrongful judgments, discrimination and evil that she had not been aware of before. She had lived in a bubble of protection, but that event happened and even her husband could not protect her.  She believed everything happens for a reason and that her arrest must have a purpose to help it make sense. This purpose she discovered was that it gave her have a strange but inspired kinship with anyone who felt helpless, hopeless or misunderstood just like what many teens must often experience whereas in the past she had not even noticed these people or know how they felt.

She had happily cared for her five kids, published articles as college educated journalist, and had started and grown a successful personal training business and had lived her entire charmed life with no record or police history or interaction of any sort. If she could go to jail just like that, and could not be helped after being turned down by two attorneys and two private detectives, then what would have happened if she had been black or gay or poor??

As Steve listened to her recount the events of the past four months, he was equally shocked just as she still was because it was fresh in her memory. She wanted him to understand that all people have things that make them afraid and that all people have choices as to how to deal with this fear.

She told him about how she believed that so many people are discriminated against for the wrong reasons, gays, blacks, women, criminals, and that from her personal experience, society was not doing the right amount of work protecting against such discrimination. She wanted him to know what SHE had learned while spending a night in jail which was that when a person feels alone and scared it is important to know that they are not alone or forgotten, even though it might seem to be true. That night as she lay on a concrete block with inmates unashamedly peering through the window at her, she held on to her core of inner strength the good of who she was, and shut her mind to any other apparent bad event. knowing that even if a person had some hurdles to overcome, those hurdles did not have to make them lose hope, feel weak, or give up.

Steve was still shaking his head about the jail time for “computer tossing”.

She told him it was true, not exaggerated and that it was a life altering event and that now she was on a mission to help others who receive unfair treatment and that she REFUSED to stand in judgment of any other human being.

Steve told her that he was fine with helping people that were discriminated against, but that gays deserved what they got because he said that they “hit on” people at his school. He complained that in his life skills class, there was a gay guy who kept hitting on him even though he told them no. He said he hated gays now because of that.

Before Lisa knew what it felt like to be helpless and unfairly judged, she would have let that comment go. But she was different now. She turned to this innocent young man and explained that she was sad to see a wonderful teenager poisoned by hate for any person. She explained to him that someone who doesn't respect your request to be left alone should be pitied and talked to based on their behavior, but not based on their ethnic or cultural or moral choices. Hate the crime, not the criminal, is what she tried to advise him to do.

In other words, it does not make for a better person to get angry at someone who is rude and blame it on the fact that he or she is gay, instead it is better to tell that person whoever they are, that they are being rude, and leave off the label. It is not fair to the rest of the population of gays who are likely NOT rude. One person who does something rude, doesn't mean that the whole population is bad. She hoped that he understood how important it was to try to treat people individually.

He was surprised because she commented to him that if you call everyone who's been to jail a criminal and bad, then that meant she was bad too. She looked at him directly and they both knew she was not bad.

He was silent as if he was thinking about what she said about profiling people and she was quiet too. He asked her if she got any help when she was in jail and she explained that no one helped her because all the people with her had been handcuffed at the same time. All ten people, kids, in-laws, even a kid from Poland visiting, were pulled over on the side of the road in the middle of main street. It had happened two hours after she threw down the computer, when they were driving in two cars on their way to dinner, and a SWAT team with guns pointed at their heads surrounded their two cars. They were all separated and no one knew what was going on. She explained that the whole incident had caused her even more marital problems in addition to the ones she already had and that for now she was now living alone, documenting her experiences with a book until she knew what she should do with her life.

She had thought that if she ended her relationship with Mitch, that she could reunite with her husband and life would return to normal. But because of the very strange jail incident, and other incidents, she was too far removed at this moment to really know how she felt and her life felt FAR from normal. But she was adjusting to the changes and she never wanted to go back to the ignorance of others mentality she had lived before.

Steve probably did not understand the whole complex story but but he commented that he still hoped that she could find a way to work out her life with her husband.

Steve said again how surprised he was by the story she had related and that he noticed that she did not talk much about her husband and that he noticed her lack of conversation about that. She smiled and told him she felt sure, with time, things would work out one way or another. Her three girls wanted the marriage to work but they also wanted her to be happy. She knew she had loved once, so it was possible to love again.

She asked him if he was able to talk to HIS parents and he said he was close to his dad but argued a lot with his mom. He said, “I am not much like my mom, I am adopted, and my mom is Hispanic.” Lisa gasped inside. He was adopted too. That final similarity to David was gut wrenching, almost unbelievable.

David again, not just part of a conversation, but a real person she could see, talk to and get to know. Not the real David but almost an exact replica of him in another body,so she could understand the way David must feel through listening to Steve. It was uncanny but a blessing and she was grateful.

David also was close to his dad but argued a lot with his mom. As they spoke, the surreal conversationto led Lisa to take a spiritual approach to the situation or she would have sortof freaked out by all the similiarities. She thought of a biblical quote from the church Christmas lesson...” and the child grew and waxed strong in spirit and the grace of God was upon him.” She smiled inside herself. David AND Steve were going to grow strong in spirit and grace. David's parents could not afford to send him off to a life skills school like Steve’s parents did but David's dad, trying to help his son with all his best instincts was just what he needed, and though it was a very tough job, she knew he had the love to do it. “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased”,  a final quote drifted into her mind from the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon. Parents should be pleased with their sons and daughters, children are always a gift.

“Your parents must love you a lot to spend all that money helping you try to get your life together” she said. “Yeah, they do” he replied.

She gave him her business card which had an email address, and she told him to contact her and let her know what he was going to be doing after he got into the military. He repeated that he wasn't even sure he would make it into the military, but she encouraged him to keep her posted and she let him know that he always had a friend if he needed one. He smiled a big smile..two hours had gone by and the plane was descending and the stewardesses were collecting trash.

A riveting fast paced conversation, with one young man, and the ghost of another young man from a relationship past. The conversation which she believed would help the young man, had instead, helped her more, because she was able to see who he was and even better she was able to see how David probably was, and she could understand how SHE felt as well. She had been allowed to see the tapestry of life unfolded through this teens eyes and could see more clearly as a result. She knew that she would not be punished for doing good. Lisa hoped she had been able to guide Steve into a better fitness program as well.

“Unless the harmony of man is becoming more apparent, we are not getting the true idea of Love”. A favorite quote for her now had even more of  a special meaning .

The value of communication shone, not just in the words spoken but in the proof during that christmas plane flight, that every person, regardless of age, race, sex, or culture, has valuable insights and every person with support, can make good decisions and change lives for the better.

David, had ended up in the hospital because of the bad decision. Maybe now he was on the school basketball team,  hanging around with a youth group at church, and going with his dad to the gym. She smiled inside.

Like David, Steve's life was full of outside people who were praying and helping him as best as they could in support of his parents efforts. As a society, no one should never feel alone with their troubles, not kids, and not the parents trying to care for them. She felt grateful that this young man Stephen had been able to escape his environment through the wisdom of his parents to go to a life skills school which appeared to have made a huge difference in his perceptions. She also felt grateful, finally, not stressed not tormented, but grateful, that she had been able to give David's dad back to David, where he could help him and could  feel peaceful as well.

Though she might still wonder what was happening to David and whether he was also learning things that were going to help him avoid a life of drug abuse she knew now that he would be OK. It was interesting to her that though she had spent years trying to help Mitch with his son, those conversations about David were not just meant to help David because years later  all those conversations had come into play in in one, two hour plane conversation with Steve to help and nurture a different teenager, and the glimpse calmed and refreshed her and gave her that Christmas enlightenment.

Two hours, a simple plane ride, but a boundless amount of honesty and introspection. Hope for the future now lifted two people, and it happened metaphorically, on an airplane ride bringing smiles to the faces of Steve and Lisa as they walked off the plane.

As she was getting her bag in the luggage department, Lisa saw Steve looking and pointing at her to an older man she assumed must have been his dad. “ I really enjoyed meeting your son” Lisa said as she walked by, “ he is a great guy”.

“I know” said his dad. Everyone smiled.