Sobered on a Tuesday

Do you have someone you'd love to go back and be able to say "thank you" to?

Believe it or not, I was watching Good Morning America this morning - (I went to the bathroom after the weather or it would have been switched back to Fox) and they had a lady on there talking about a man who was kind to her in her first year of college.

She was one of those undesirables - overweight, glasses, shy, pimples. She'd been teased unmercifully for her whole school life and only went to college after she'd dropped out of school because it was so bad.

You all know the kind of person I'm talking about.

So she spoke on how this guy was kind to her. He was popular and hot and so girls hung with her because she was his friend. Guys talked to her because he was an 'in' group. He wouldn't let anyone talk trash about her - told them to 'Back off, she's a good friend of mine." He stood by her the whole time he was in college.

She ended up leading a normal life after all just because he spoke to her and drew her in to a better world. She saw a sweeter life because he showed it to her. He allowed her to put a foot in the door of a place she'd never been before - normalcy.

And he wasn't in it for anything but the fact that he saw the way she was treated and not only knew it was wrong but refused to allow it to happen around him. (They reunited after like 30 years on the show and of course I bawled.)

Youth is so given to the wrong people.

What would I give to go back and be the person who stood against that? I saw it happen to others, but while I don't remember actively engaging in the brutality, I didn't stop it either. And it's not because of a "what a wonderful person that Jackie is!" complex. I'ts about not standing in shame before my God.

So I learn and move on. Because that all I can do now.