When I am on the plane I always anxiously await who will sit by me. If we are being completely honest, I always hope that I get to sit by an army guy, specifically one that isn’t married. I’m human, what can I say? It has yet to happen, but I am not giving up hope quite yet. I have sat by countless business men who have no interest in speaking to me, a college student from CU, and a flight attendant from another airline (her remarks were quite funny, especially because we were flying American. SO many flaws, so little time). On one occasion I was even blessed enough to next to this precious French two year old. We played peekaboo for a solid 2 hours. I thought that was going to be my all time favorite passenger until I met a man of about 50 on my plane ride back to Denver.
I was 27E and he was 27D. From the get go he struck up a conversation. My first thought was, I have SO much microbiology to study and if this guy thinks we are going to converse for the next two hours, he is nuts. I was shocked as this guy practically told me his life story. He had a 20 year old son and an 8 year old girl and worked for an oil rig company. His son went to LSU and evidently he is a nerd who wants to be pharmacist. He then told me that his wife battled with depression for the past 5 years and that at first he could not understand why she could not get over it, but he went to meetings, read books and worked with his wife to make her better. In case you wanted to know, his wife is a school teacher of 5th grade, and he told me he was happy she moved from 1st grade, because now she treats him like a 5th grader instead of a 1st grader. I also found out his nephew was the quarterback of LSU and will be going pro, but he won’t get any of that money. I found out all of this in a course of about five minutes. He was an open man to say the least. He then informed me that he was afraid of taking off, and I told him we could talk as long as need be.
Well, when he was done with his life story he wanted to know more about me. I told him I was a nursing major at Regis University and I want to be a nurse practitioner. Now, what he told me after I informed him of my life goals first made me smile, and secondly I think made a difference in me. Ridiculous? Well, hold on before you pass judgment.
He told me that I seemed like a bright girl with a lot of potential. Let’s be honest, compliments from strangers are the best. Going off of this he told me that because of what I want to do with my life, when it comes to falling in love I deserve the very best and I should not settle. A direct quote: “You are going to be making good money. If he does not provide, if he does not know what he wants out of his life, kick him to the curb. You deserve the very best man.” He then went on to tell me that marriage is a beautiful thing and he used to think it was always going to be peachy keen, but with his wife having depression he discovered there is so much to fighting for the one you love.
At this point I pretty much thought I was going to cry. I had had a really rough week and sometimes you just need someone to put things in perspective. He saw my microbio binder and said he wanted to tell me one more thing before he let me focus on studying. He said that he had been around the block a time or two and he wanted me to know that life is much too short to not enjoy every day and wake up happy and hopeful. He told me that if there are people in my life that do not make me the best person I can be, I needed to forget them because I am worth much more than that.
He then put his headphones in and who knows where that man is now. I don’t subscribe to the idea that “everything happens for a reason,” but I know God put that man right next to me because he had some things I needed to hear.
